Legislature may allow dog tracks
to reduce racing and keep other games

By Ryan Mills
Naples News.com
© 2011 Scripps Newspaper Group
Friday, April 1, 2011

TALLAHASSEE — Every year, more than 3,000 greyhound races are held at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track.

Izzy Havenick thinks that’s way too many.

By state law, Havenick, the vice president of Southwest Florida Enterprises, which owns the Bonita-based track, has to stage about 400 performances – at least eight races per performance – annually in order to continue operating his card room at the track.

The card room is a money-maker. The dog racing, not so much.

“We would love to scale back to somewhere between 70 and 150 (performances), or something like that,” Havenick said, “but under current state law we’re not allowed to.”

That could change soon if two bills working their way through the Florida House and Senate become law. Senate Bill 1594 and House Bill 1145 would decouple card rooms and slot machines from greyhound racing, leaving the fate of Florida’s greyhound racing industry to the market.

The bills bring together an unlikely coalition – dog track operators who want to free themselves from the burdens of an increasingly unprofitable industry and animal rights organizations who believe dog racing is cruel.

“It is odd for us to be on the same side as the dog tracks on an issue,” said Jennifer Hobgood, Florida director of the Humane Society. “For so many years we’ve been opponents.”

Not everyone supports the proposed legislation, including kennel operators and greyhound breeders whose livelihoods are tied to the racing industry. They say the legislati on would hurt their jobs, as well as the jobs of thousands of track workers.

“I know they plan on reducing (racing), and some places are planning on eliminating (racing). That’s what the bill is all about,” said James Blanchard, a Naples-based kennel owner and vice president of the National Greyhound Association. “There’s no protections for our side of the industry. I don’t want to see it happen because me and a lot of really good people will lose their jobs.”

Greyhound racing was authorized in Florida in 1931, according to Florida House records. Florida is home to 13 of the 23 greyhound tracks offering live racing in the United States, making the state the nation’s leader in greyhound racing.

In 1996, the state authorized card rooms at greyhound tracks. To continue their card rooms, every year the tracks are required to conduct at least 90 percent of the performances that they conducted the year they applied for their initial card room license.

However, over the last 10 years wagering on greyhound racing has taken a dive, dropping from $633,230,507 in 1999-2000 to $291,794,434 in 2009-10.

At the Bonita track, the 2009-10 handle was $25,608,477, down from $37,108,720 as recently as 2007-08.

“The result is these facilities today are card rooms and casinos that happen to have dogs running around in circles, with virtually no one in the bandstand, with virtually no one betting on the dogs,” said Carey Theil, executive director of Grey2K USA, a national, nonprofit greyhound protection organization that seeks the abolition of dog racing.

Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray, the sponsor of the Senate bill, and Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, the House sponsor, both said they want to see greyhound racing and the greyhound breeding industry driven by market forces, rather than artificially propped-up by government.

“What it is going to do is turn over the greyhound racing industry to the private market, to the free market,” Young said, “and the dog kennel industry and the greyhound tracks are going to have to succeed or fail on their own without a government mandate to prop them up.”

Theil is optimistic about turning greyhound racing over to the market as well, but not because of any particular devotion to capitalism.

A Humane Society poll of 625 Florida voters in early March found that 68 percent disapproved with the law requiring coupling card rooms and greyhound racing, compared to 19 percent who approved.

“There is virtually no market support for live greyhound racing,” Theil said. “There is very little popular support for greyhound racing.”

If the law passes, Havenick said the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track will continue to offer dog races, but far fewer of them. He considers it a win-win for everyone involved, including the dog owners.

There will be fewer races, Havenick said, but the races will be better because the dogs will come from a smaller, stronger pool, and the purses will be higher.

“We think if it’s done in a controlled environment, once a week, twice a week, rather than seven nights a week, it could be turned into something that works and could attract people,” Havenick said.

Blanchard denies that greyhound racing is cruel. He said he spends most of his days with his dogs – more time than some people spend with their kids.

With his livelihood in jeopardy, Blanchard has vowed to fight.

“Right now we’re supposed to be making jobs,” he said. “Isn’t that the theme? This will affect 3,000 jobs, at least that many working around the state.”

Sachs, who said she has nothing against dog racing, sees decoupling card rooms and greyhound racing as the first step toward a complete makeover of Florida’s gambling industry.

“This is not a dog issue. It’s not any other issue than let the market demand the number of races,” Sachs said. “I don’t see this as a Democratic issue. I don’t see this as a Republican issue. I see this as an economic issue, and on that we’re all together.”