Poker trumps dogs
By Gulf Coast Business Review - April 12, 2011
Florida greyhound tracks may go dark soon, but their adjacent poker rooms will live on if similar bills working through the Legislature become law.
Legislation doing away with the requirement that greyhound racing permitholders offer live races to qualify for other licenses, including one to operate poker rooms, passed the House Finance and Tax Committee April 12. Greyhound racing was authorized in the state in 1931.
Gulf Coast greyhound tracks include St. Petersburg’s Derby Lane, Tampa Greyhound, the Sarasota Kennel Club, and Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound. Each has a cardroom. There are cardrooms at 14 of the 16 Florida greyhound tracks running races.
Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, sponsored HB 1145, which now goes to the Economic Affairs Committee, its last committee stop. A similar bill in the Senate, SB 1594, is on the April 13 agenda of that body’s Finance and Tax Subcommittee.
In the last decade, the total handle fell from $633 million to less than $292 million. A staff analysis of the House bill estimates that the state would lose at least $1.4 million next fiscal year without dog racing.
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http://www.bradenton.com/2011/04/12/3108796/greyhound-legislation-moves-ahead.html
Greyhound legislation moves ahead in Florida House
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau - April 14, 2011
Greyhound racing could fade away under legislation that would empower track owners to drop the events and still maintain money-makers like card rooms and slot machines.
A House bill sponsored by Tampa Republican Dana Young removes the state mandate that track owners must run a minimum of 100 live events each year to qualify for other licenses, including card rooms and slot machines.
The bill passed the House Finance & Tax committee today and has one more committee stop. Similar legislation is working its way through the Senate.
Young said her legislation (HB 1145) gets greyhound racing off government-sponsored life support. Since 1990, she said, the amount of state taxes collected for live greyhound racing has declined by 96 percent, from more than $75 million to less than $2.7 million. “At many facilities, live dog racing events are a money losing proposition, which, absent the mandate, may not take place,” she said.
Supporters of the bill include some track owners and animal rights groups. Critics include greyhound breeders, who say it would cost jobs, and gambling opponents, who say that it could open the door to an expansion of poker and card rooms.
Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill so that voters in each county would decide whether to remove the mandate. Voters in 1958 approved greyhound racing, he said, not card rooms or off-track parlors. The bill, he said, “means you can expand card rooms if you do away with greyhound racing.”
Young called that a “red herring,” saying her bill actually reduces gambling and has no provisions that makes it easier for track owners to get card room licenses. "There is not one new card room permit that will be issued as a result of this bill," she said. Van Zant and committee chairman Stephen Precourt voted against the bill.
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http://saintpetersblog.com/2011/04/the-end-of-greyhound-racing-moves-closer-to-finish-line/
The end of greyhound racing moves closer to finish line
By Peter Schorsch, SaintPetersBlog - April 12, 2011
Animal lovers who want to see an end to dog racing in Florida are a step closer to the goal with passage Tuesday in the House Finance and Tax Committee of a bill that would let dog tracks keep poker rooms, but not have to run the dogs reports the News Service of Florida.
Backers of the measure, which includes some track owners, say the tracks make their money from the card rooms anyway, so why have the races? But the law requires the greyhound licenses.
“Look, these have become poker rooms that happen to have some dogs running around in circles – with no one in the grandstands,” said Carey Theil, director of Grey2K USA, which has pushed to end racing.
Passage in Finance and Tax on a 21-2 vote with Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, and Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, against. Rep. Pat Rooney, R-Palm Beach Gardens, didn’t vote, because he is president of a dog track, the Palm Beach Kennel Club. The measure (HB 1145) by Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, now goes to House Economic Affairs. A Senate version (SB 1954) is scheduled to be heard in Senate Finance and Tax on Wednesday.
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Bill would no longer require that greyhound tracks hold greyhound races
By Matt Dixon - April 13, 2011
A Senate panel Wednesday moved a bill that would no longer require that greyhound tracks hold live races.
Track owners have wanted to shed their books of live races because they are sparsely attended money losers. The bill also provides tracks an estimated $1.4 million annual tax reduction starting in 2012.
Kennel owners argued that the move would put them out of business because there would be a greatly reduced demand for their product.
"I would not be able to pay my bills," said Todd Byers, who owns a Kennel Club in Daytona Beach. He said his company would be worth nothing if the bill passes.
Others argued there is no provision in the bill to deal with the hoards of unemployed greyhounds that would need to be adopted.
Jacksonville Greyhound, which owns the dog track in Orange Park, has not taken a position on the bill, said track spokesman Michael Munz. If the legislation does pass, though, it won't affect operations there.
"Live racing will continue at Orange Park regardless of the passage of this bill," he said.
Sen. Maria Sachs, D - Delray, said that her bill would do nothing to prevent tracks from having live races, and that the market, under her bill, could help dictate which tracks want to have them.
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