You can't close Nassau OTB based upon religious preference. Grace Meng need not have gone to the Chinatown Branch of Dead NYC OTB to know that at least some Asians bet.
Grace Meng another lazy politician who has not cared to see that NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issues a FORMAL OPINION that will tell us that :
1. NY PML Sec 109 and its predecessor Sec. 105 are not constitutionally defensible.
2. That the above statutes do not apply to Nassau OTB
3. That the statutes violate the rights of Asian Bettors secured by NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3.
4. That the statutes are vague, indefinite and/or overly broad.
Let's bet Grace Meng, a round of cold beers at a corner bar on Hempstead Turnpike within one block of a Nassau OTB Branch.
Email: gracefornewyork@gmail.com
Forest Hills: 347-809-7252
Flushing: 347-542-3778
Asians Start Flexing Political Muscle
more in New York »
By ANDREW GROSSMAN
A dozen years ago, not a single Asian-American held elected office in New York City, even though they accounted for almost one in 10 of its residents.Now, two Asian-Americans serve on the City Council. One, Comptroller John Liu, holds citywide office. Another, Grace Meng, holds a seat in the Assembly and won the June 26 primary for a congressional seat in Queens. She is favored to win the general election in November.
Ms. Meng's victory serves as the latest chapter in an unfolding New York political story: Asian-Americans, especially those of Chinese descent, are establishing themselves as one of the city's most important ethnic groups at the ballot box, following a path walked decades earlier by African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Eastern European Jews, Italians and Irish.
"It's a constituency and a community that's been emerging at a really healthy pace over the last few years," said Doug Forand, a political consultant who works for Ms. Meng's campaign. "You're seeing that community not only mature, but feel the extent of its power."
The latest manifestation of Asians' influence is Ms. Meng, a 36-year-old daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. Born in New York City and raised in Flushing, Ms. Meng represents the ability of second-generation immigrant groups to gain and then hold on to political power, experts say.
Ms. Meng is popular among her base in Flushing, where the Chinese population now outnumbers that of Manhattan's Chinatown, according to the 2010 Census.
The new Sixth District appeared to be drawn to capitalize on that. It encompasses all of Flushing and central Queens neighborhoods such as Woodside, where Filipinos and south Asians have become the dominant ethnic groups.
Whitestone resident Tom Wang, a 62-year-old Taiwanese immigrant business owner, said he voted for Ms. Meng "because she is Asian."
Mr. Wang said he remembered her father, Jimmy Meng, who once held the Assembly seat his daughter eventually won. He said he was proud to see an Asian politician rise so high.
"A lot of Asians don't have high job positions," he said.
Marshaling voters like Mr. Wang helped Ms. Meng defeat two candidates with roots in ethnic groups that have traditionally dominated Queens politics: Assemblyman Rory Lancman, who is Jewish, and City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who is Irish-American.
But Ms. Meng has also gone out of her way to avoid being seen as just an Asian candidate.
In the Assembly, she worked on an unsuccessful effort to get businesses to put English on their signs, instead of just Chinese and Korean—a nod to English-speaking Flushing residents, many of whom are older, regular voters who had complained of feeling like foreigners in their own neighborhood.
Her campaign has sought to play down the idea that her ethnicity makes her different. Many of her campaign signs omitted her last name, saying simply: "Grace."
"Queens is the most diverse county in the country, but what's different about voters throughout the borough is nothing compared to the everyday, middle-class struggles they share," a spokesman for Ms. Meng said. "Grace Meng is the strongest and most trusted candidate to stand up for middle-class families in Queens."
In her victory speech last week, Ms. Meng said to her Republican opponent, City Council Member Daniel Halloran: "Let's not discuss race or religion" in the general election campaign.
Such moves made an impact at the polls. Ms. Meng did extraordinarily well in her own, Flushing-centered Assembly district, winning 71.4% of the vote, according to a preliminary tally from the Board of Elections. She also did well in areas with few Asian-Americans, such as the Assembly district represented by her closest opponent, Mr. Lancman. There, she won 45.2% of the vote, beating Mr. Lancman by six percentage points.
Ms. Meng had help.
There was the Queens Democratic Party, headed by Rep. Joseph Crowley, which threw its support behind her, a move the organization believes will help bring thousands of new voters into its fold. The party saw the retirement of incumbent Rep. Gary Ackerman as an opportunity to reach out to the emerging group, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, seeing a growing number of hotel workers of Asian descent among its rank-and-file, backed Ms. Meng too, even as other bigger unions such as 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and the building trades threw their support to her opponents.
Josh Gold, the hotel workers' political director, ran Ms. Meng's voter turnout operation. He said dozens of hotel union members, many of them Asian, volunteered for a political campaign for the first time on Ms. Meng's race.
"Grace is like them, she's a daughter of immigrants," Mr. Gold said. "There are a lot of first-time volunteers who don't normally volunteer on these campaigns."
Some Asian-American voters said they felt the sense that their community has come of age politically and is on its way toward integrating itself into the establishment—and reaping some of the benefits that come with that.
"I've never seen people tell me to come out and vote so much before," said Amy Zhao, who voted on June 26 for the first time. "I figured this must be important."
The 21-year-old criminology student was born and raised in Queens. Her parents emigrated from China. She said she received a lot of phone calls from Ms. Meng's campaign and several people rang her doorbell. That, combined with her sister's pushing, convinced her to vote. She is excited that Ms. Meng is from Queens, but more so that she is potentially the first Asian woman to be elected to Congress from the city.
"It's just different," she said. "Usually Asian woman are stay-at-home wives or work in sweatshops. It's interesting. It's exciting."
—Alison Fox
contributed to this article. Write to Andrew Grossman at andrew.grossman@wsj.com
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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