First, the dog track’s crowd was less than overwhelming:
The roughly 12 people watching simulcasts on Sunday night represent a larger problem for the racetrack: significantly fewer people attend races than years ago and the track has suffered a large drop in revenue.
Undeterred, O’Brien began to interview some of the dozen patrons, asking them for their views on the pending ballot question that would close Wonderland.
He must have been surprised by what he found:
Yet, dog-racing opponents have some unlikely supporters. Even some bettors say greyhounds are probably being abused.
“I agree. I think it’s cruelty to animals,” said track patron Eddie Smith as he sat with a tiny group of people watching simulcast races at Wonderland Sunday night.
Of course, one Wonderland patron acknowledging that commercial dog racing is cruel could be a fluke. To get a good sampling, O’Brien asked for the thoughts of a second patron.
Phil Orlandella, 62, of Saugus, says the greyhounds probably do suffer abuse, but so do race horses and other types of competitive animals.
Finally, both patrons indicated that they wouldn’t shed any tears if Wonderland closes.
Both Orlandella and Smith say it wouldn’t be a big deal if live racing had to end in Massachusetts.
“Like anything else, it’s more or less a habit,” Smith said. “It’s a gambling thing. You could always find something else to do.”
If Wonderland closes, “we’d probably end up at another track that has simulcasting,” Orlandella said.
He did eventually find a patron who would defend Wonderland, although the dog racing supporter didn’t seem to give any rational reason for why dog racing should stay.
Sidney Paul, 84, of Salem, says it would be a shame if the ballot question passed because “you gotta keep it going.”
“Tell these do-gooders to go back where they belong,” said Paul, who has attended races at Wonderland for about 60 years. “They’re interferers. (The dogs) are better kept than most animals in the world.”
However, even this track supporter seemed resigned to seeing dog racing end soon:
“The business is going to die by itself anyway. People have slowly stopped betting,” he said. “It’s only a question of time.”
To read the full story, go to:
http://www.itemlive.com/articl…
Yours,
Carey Theil
www.protectdogs.org
overall against closing the tracks–because of the jobs. Now like Mr Paul says it is a dying business.
They could always move to Britain or Ireland. Greyhound racing is alive and well there, I’ll tell you that much. Although, in all honesty, punters tend to go to betting shops such as Ladbrokes, William Hill, Paddy Power, or Boylesports and bet on simulcasts as opposed to actually going to the tracks. Then again, a lot of them go in there to bet on sporting events, then get suckered into the dogs, the ponies, and their lottery games. How there has not been a massive gambling scandal involving the GAA the way there have been with intercollegiate athletics here is beyond me. 😉
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p>Having said that, Carey, or anybody else, are you planning to move to the UK and/or Ireland to lobby Westminster and/or Leinster House? Just wondering.
The Irish haven’t moved to tUSA to push for a full ban on smoking inside pubs nationwide. Nor for universal health care. Nor for [nearly] free university education. Etc.
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p>Lobbying to change law outside of jurisdiction is tricky business, and trickier as one moves up the levels.
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p>Besides, were I concerned about animal welfare, I’d go after Spanish bullfights or Thai cockfights before Irish dog racing.
I guess I wanted to get a ruse out of somebody. 😉
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p>I was in Britain and Ireland in late August, and every time I walked into Ladbrokes or Paddy Power because I fancied a punt on the footy and saw these guys holding their racing forms while playing the ponies and the pooches, I felt, well, dirty, queasy, etc. FYI, I broke even and/or came out slightly ahead, so that’s all you can ask for. Then again, any winnings I had (and I don’t have the funds to be gambling large amounts, especially with this exchange rate) ended up going back into the beer fund. 😀
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p>I should also point out that this trip was part of a comparative public policy seminar in Dublin, and I had a nice discussion with a civil servant from the Irish Department of Health and Children on their healthcare program, and it’s not exactly a universal program in that it’s not single-payer. They have a hybrid public-private system.
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p>As for the bullfights, they are still around due to tradition, and quite a few festivals are centred around the bullfighting season (the Feria de Abril in Sevilla, for example), but bullfighting does not capture the passion and imagination of the people anymore. That would be association football (fútbol), and, to a lesser extent, especially since the 1992 Olympics, basketball. I would continue to let the people do the talking on that one (and anything else, really). Then again, the Portuguese will talk about how their bullfights are more humane, since they are on horseback and don’t kill the bull. 😉
No sense to me why there are still race tracks. We could do so much more with the land occupying that space, so I definately don’t worry about the jobs aspect – shutting it down is more likely to eventually create more jobs than less (and probably a fair amount of better paying ones, too).
We could do so much more with the land– who owns it?
The government doesn’t own it. Nor did I say they should. See, we live in this type of economy called
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p>c a p i t a l i s m
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p>and with that type of economy, only the strong industries will survive. The racing industry, especially of the dog variety, isn’t one of the stronger ones.
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p>Furthermore, there’s the whole “dog racing is viciously cruel and horrible” thing going on, too. And, last time I checked, the government was in the regulating cruelity business. That doesn’t mean the government gets all the land, but it does mean that if the people choose to ban dog racing then dog racing shall be banned. And it also means that if dog racing isn’t profitable any longer, then eventually dog racing will die out.
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p>But feel free to grasp at straws and take my words out of context! I’m sure that’s working out great for you…
So are you proposing to take the property by eminent domain, so that “we” can put the property to some use that “we” deem to be better? Maqybe our governor will deem that its nest use for “us” is as a casino.
that’s not an unlikely outcome. IIRC, Wonderland’s owners have said that if the casino bill is approved, they will close down the dog track and bid for a casino.
A reason to vote against the ban!
The dog racing ban is irrelevant to Wonderland’s casino prospects. It’s all about the casino bill — if the bill passes, they’ll shut down dog racing regardless of the ballot question. There’s no more money in dog racing, and tons in a casino. Strictly business.
Apparently isn’t an innate skill.
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p>What part of
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p>did you not understand?
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p>How in the world does that leave any doubt as to whether or not I think the government should be able to take the land in eminent domain?
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p>No, of course I don’t think they should. It’s a privately-owned piece of land, not the government’s. That doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have a right to regulate dog racing, including banning it because it’s animal cruelty. If that were to happen, the owners of Wonderland Greyhound racing would have two obvious choices: either build something else on the land or sell it. Either way, there’s a very large chance of making far more profits than the dying industry they currently use the land for.
I took umbrage at a comment made in passing upthread that “we can make much better use of the land” which is an apt description of government running amuck.
“We,” may have been a bad choice of words, but I was speaking in terms of anyone in society, not the government. Specifically, I had in mind that a developer or entreprenuer of some kind would buy the land, or the race track owners would decide to do something completely different with it. Since I think pretty much anything any of these people, who legally and fairly owned the property (read: not the government) could think of would be a better use of the land, I’m confident we – consumers, employees, etc. – will get something better from it.
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p>I’m very wary of using eminent domain; it should only be used as a last-case resort for public projects when there’s no reasonable course of action that could be used to avoid it. For example, there’s a high school in danger of losing its accredation and absolutely, positively no other suitable locations for a new high school other than one or two pieces of property. And in those cases, anyone who has to suffer losing the land they live on ought to be rewarded well beyond whatever the fair market value is for their property.
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p>I hope that helps clarify my thoughts on the government and land use. I’m by no means a socialist =p
I misread you.
People occasionally ask about our greyhound’s racing record, wondering if they might have bet on one of his races, and this usually leads to a conversation in which they express sympathy for the condition of the racing dogs. Now, I guess people who don’t care about how the dogs are treated probably aren’t going to talk to me, but I do think that the increasing prevalence of retired racing greyhounds in the Boston area has definitely helped the cause as people get to see first hand what sweet animals they are.
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p>For the record, our greyhound must have washed out early, since he did not actually run any races, although all his siblings did.