We propose a description of open universes in the Chern-Simons formulation of
(2+1)-dimensional gravity where spatial infinity is implemented as a puncture.
At this puncture, additional variables are introduced which lie in the
cotangent bundle of the Poincar\'e group, and coupled minimally to the
Chern-Simons gauge field. We apply this description of spatial infinity to open
universes of general genus and with an arbitrary number of massive spinning
particles. Using results of [9] we give a finite dimensional description of the
phase space and determine its symplectic structure. In the special case of a
genus zero universe with spinless particles, we compare our result to the
symplectic structure computed by Matschull in the metric formulation of
(2+1)-dimensional gravity. We comment on the quantisation of the phase space
and derive a quantisation condition for the total mass and spin of an open
universe.Comment: 44 pages, 3 eps figure