Wichita Greyhound Park closing's effect felt across state
BY FRED MANN
The Wichita Eagle
One day after voters denied slot machines for Sedgwick County's dog racing track by a tiny margin, the gamblers were back. About 100 people glued their eyes to television screens upstairs at Wichita Greyhound Park on Wednesday, watching simulcasts of horse and dog races at tracks all over the country.
"Go, 7!" one shouted at a screen, trying to convince a dog a thousand miles away to hustle to the finish line a little faster.
"Go, 7! Go, 7! Go, 7" he shouted.
Beulah Dahna, who works in the deli in the simulcast area, observed the scene with wry detachment.
The crowd was larger than normal for a weekday, she said.
"I guess they thought maybe it was the last day and they better grab it while they could," she said.
Owner Phil Ruffin announced Tuesday night that he'd close the track in 90 days after slot machines for the track were rejected by 343 votes.
The closure is expected to have a negative ripple effect through the dog and horse racing industry, according to industry officials. It could also imperil racing at Eureka and Anthony in the short term, they said.
250 jobs lost
But not all of the park's 250 employees were ready to accept that the track will close.
"We're not dead yet!" one security guard told another over and over in the lobby, referring to provisional ballots that haven't been counted yet.
Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Bill Gale said that about 2,500 provisional ballots -- cast when a voter's eligibility is in doubt -- are waiting to be tallied Monday.
But chances they will change the vote are slim, he said.
"Mathematically it's possible, but usually you find that the provisionals are consistent with the votes that were counted on election night," Gale said. "It seldom changes the outcome. But it is possible. It's been known to happen in close races."
Track employees were still dealing with emotions.
"It's emotional because everybody's really close. It affects all of us," said Amber Sprouse, 20, a receptionist and waitress at the track, where she's worked for four years.
She took phone calls Wednesday from people sympathetic to the employees. Some told her they didn't understand the wording on the ballot questions and couldn't' tell which concerned the proposed casino, and which concerned slot machines for the track.
Shelli Baker, the track's general manager, said the main thing she thought about the day after the vote was how the track could have spread the message better that jobs would be lost if the slots failed.
She has worked at the track since 1989, and worried about the employees, including herself.
"I don't know how to do anything else," she said. "I worked for a race track since I was 18. I'm going to have find a new career."
Others said they hope to transfer to Ruffin's Camptown race track in Frontenac, which is due to open in the spring.
State steps in
Steve Martino, executive director of the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission, visited the track Wednesday to meet with Ruffin and the management staff and discuss the closure.
The commission, which has no rules governing the closing of a racetrack, will issue an order intended to ensure a smooth process, he said.
The health of the roughly 400 greyhounds at the track is the commission's top priority, Martino said. Some will be taken to other tracks, others returned to farms and others adopted out, he said.
Other priorities include security of the premises, making sure the track's finances remain in order, and helping employees gain access to information from the state's Labor Department to help them make the transition to new jobs, he said.
Some of the greyhounds may be taken quickly to other tracks because of training and racing schedules.
"It would not surprise us if there was a pretty rapid exodus of dogs," Martino said. "On the other hand, some kennel owners maybe decide to operate here as long as they can."
Horse racing affected
Fallout from the closing will settle over the horse racing as well as the greyhound industry, he said.
One percent of the revenue from slot machines at the state's race tracks is to go to a so-called fair horse racing fund to benefit the Eureka and Anthony tracks, and 7 percent to supplement purses for dog and horse races.
The 800 slots due to go to Greyhound Park will be distributed to the other two tracks, The Woodlands horse and dog track in Kansas City and Camptown.
But Doug Lawrence, executive director of the Kansas Greyhound Association, who campaigned for expanded gambling in the county, said the 700 dogs anticipated for Greyhound Park with the expansion of gambling are lost.
"Instead of 2,100 dogs at three tracks, we'd have 1,400 at two," he said.
The result is a loss of kennel operators, jobs associated with the industry and opportunities for new owners and operators to get involved, he said.
The track also provides money to the horse racing industry through simulcasting, which will be lost.
The financially strapped tracks in Eureka and Anthony will have to find a way to survive another year until slots go in at The Woodlands and Camptown.
"There is no doubt this is going to have a negative impact on the fair fund and subsidizing the needs at Anthony and Eureka," Martino said. "They wouldn't be able to operate without the grants from the fair fund. You take one of the three anticipated tracks out of that, and it' s going to have an impact."
Dan Bird, president of the Anthony Fair Association, said county fair racing will be in a bind for 2008.
"Needless to say, this fall and winter there will be a lot of discussion to see if we can survive," he said. |
