Post by CampWhippet on Apr 22, 2006 15:02:30 GMT -5
Senate opposes racetrack subsidy
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Friday, Apr. 21, 2006
CONCORD – The state Senate for the first time voted to end a $325,000-a-year subsidy to five racetracks that for the past 43 years have agreed to sell lottery tickets.
Racetrack supporters scrambled after a move to kill the bill failed, 12-12.
They offered and won approval, 15-9, for ending the subsidy in mid-2009, two years later than a House-approved deadline.
The subsidy boosts the winning purses for Sweepstakes Races run at four dog and horse tracks along with a state racing fair in Rochester.
“The subsidy was created decades ago when racetrack owners cut a deal with lawmakers,’’ said Sen. Sheila Roberge, R-Bedford.
“We have the right, as a Senate, to change our minds’’
Senate Majority Leader Robert Clegg, R-Hudson, was one of three senators to switch and said the money violates the state Constitution that requires all lottery profits go towards aid to public schools.
The three towns Clegg represents lost more than $4 million in education aid this year.
“We give education money to the gambling industry at the same time you are pulling education money from the kids who need it,’’ Clegg said.
Grey2KUSA, an anti-greyhound racing group, placed a full-page ad in The Telegraph this week, hoping to convince Clegg and Sen. Joseph Foster, D-Nashua, to join their campaign.
The strategy worked.
Paul LaFlamme of Nashua, a member of the group’s board of directors, praised both senators although he’s hoping an earlier end to the subsidy can emerge from House-Senate talks.
“We are disappointed about the two-year delay. It’s a lot of money the tracks will get we think is unfair, but at least we have both bodies saying this idea is bad and ought to be repealed,’’ LaFlamme said.
Without the subsidy, track executives said they would stop selling lottery tickets that generated $1.2 million in sales last year.
“If you have a partnership and one partner pulls out, there’s no reason to keep the other end of the deal. Selling lottery tickets where other forms of gambling take place amounts to competition,’’ said Curtis Barry, lobbyist for owners of the Hinsdale dog track.
Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, said the new owners of Rockingham Park in his hometown need the money to help bring back thoroughbred horse racing next year.
“It’s a tradition down there. We’re trying to save it,’’ Morse said.
Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com.
www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/NEWS02/104210132/-1/sports
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Friday, Apr. 21, 2006
CONCORD – The state Senate for the first time voted to end a $325,000-a-year subsidy to five racetracks that for the past 43 years have agreed to sell lottery tickets.
Racetrack supporters scrambled after a move to kill the bill failed, 12-12.
They offered and won approval, 15-9, for ending the subsidy in mid-2009, two years later than a House-approved deadline.
The subsidy boosts the winning purses for Sweepstakes Races run at four dog and horse tracks along with a state racing fair in Rochester.
“The subsidy was created decades ago when racetrack owners cut a deal with lawmakers,’’ said Sen. Sheila Roberge, R-Bedford.
“We have the right, as a Senate, to change our minds’’
Senate Majority Leader Robert Clegg, R-Hudson, was one of three senators to switch and said the money violates the state Constitution that requires all lottery profits go towards aid to public schools.
The three towns Clegg represents lost more than $4 million in education aid this year.
“We give education money to the gambling industry at the same time you are pulling education money from the kids who need it,’’ Clegg said.
Grey2KUSA, an anti-greyhound racing group, placed a full-page ad in The Telegraph this week, hoping to convince Clegg and Sen. Joseph Foster, D-Nashua, to join their campaign.
The strategy worked.
Paul LaFlamme of Nashua, a member of the group’s board of directors, praised both senators although he’s hoping an earlier end to the subsidy can emerge from House-Senate talks.
“We are disappointed about the two-year delay. It’s a lot of money the tracks will get we think is unfair, but at least we have both bodies saying this idea is bad and ought to be repealed,’’ LaFlamme said.
Without the subsidy, track executives said they would stop selling lottery tickets that generated $1.2 million in sales last year.
“If you have a partnership and one partner pulls out, there’s no reason to keep the other end of the deal. Selling lottery tickets where other forms of gambling take place amounts to competition,’’ said Curtis Barry, lobbyist for owners of the Hinsdale dog track.
Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, said the new owners of Rockingham Park in his hometown need the money to help bring back thoroughbred horse racing next year.
“It’s a tradition down there. We’re trying to save it,’’ Morse said.
Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com.
www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/NEWS02/104210132/-1/sports
