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Long Island Business News

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Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

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.

SUZY BALLANTYNE

silent too long

Chief of Staff to the Democratic New York State Senate

Suzy Ballantyne is currently employed by the New York State Democratic Conference and serves as the Chief of Staff to Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Formerly she was employed for 28 years at the AFL-CIO most recently as Executive Assistant to the President. As Director of Governmental Affairs for many years, her responsibilities include organizing grassroots lobbying of state and federal issues of concern to working men and woman. She has coordinated labor operations for hundreds of political campaigns. She also served in 2003-4 as the Executive Director of Voices for Working Families, a AFL-CIO affiliated 527 for the 2004 Election Cycle. As a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, she began her career at the National Association of Letter Carriers where she served as a legislative liaison.

Since the towers fell, Suzy has spearheaded the September 11th Federal health response for workers who were at the World Trade Center Disaster. She assisted in coordinating New York’s original successful request to the Federal Government of $21.5 Billion. Over the past eleven years she has continued to coordinate with the city, state, and federal officials a strategy to assist in developing the long-term legislative strategy to compensate and provide health care and compensation for the workers of 9/11. In 2011, the James Zadroga Health and Compensation bill was signed into law. In 2010, the Reauthorization of the James Zadroga Health and Compensation bill was signed into law with permanent health care coverage.

She currently lives in Clifton Park, New York with her husband and three children, Patrick, Tyler, and Katie. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1983. She has worked on various campaigns throughout the country.