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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.
TV Broadcasters Outside Parliament Can’t Shake ‘Stop Brexit Steve’
Protester, with megaphone, wins cat-and-mouse game with TV reporters covering U.K.’s break with EU by getting into shot every time; BBC built a scaffold, Steve Bray got taller signs
LONDON—British people hold deep disagreements about how and when and even if Brexit should take place. At least there’s one thing everyone can share a chuckle over: Steve Bray and his 3-foot megaphone.
“Stop Brexit Steve, ” as he’s known, has stood outside Parliament for months, wearing a blue top hat and a combo Union Jack-European Union flag cape, yelling anti-Brexit slogans through his yell-leader style horn. He is a master at interrupting the lawmaker interviews and stand-up dispatches of television-news reporters, who commonly position themselves outside the historic neo-Gothic building that is the seat of British democracy.
Can you hear me now?
Now, even though people are anxious to get past the chaos caused by the unsettled Brexit question, Mr. Bray is one character they can count on.
“Stop Brexit has become the sound track to parliamentary votes,” said ITV news correspondent Angus Walker.
No matter what news crews do to keep him off camera, the 49-year-old grandfather finds a way to get his message on TV. “I’ve always thought ahead about how to overcome a problem,” said Mr. Bray, a coin collector who sold some of his collection to fund his first year of protest.
First, he crept into view behind correspondents’ live shots in front of Parliament, brandishing signs protesting Britain’s decision to pull out of the EU.
As fast as producers could cut away, Mr. Bray would scamper around to a new angle, and get back in the frame.
Then, the official called Black Rod, the keeper of the parliamentary estate, erected a barrier around College Green, the area broadcasters use to deliver Brexit news.
“I’d jump over the fence with the [signs], get a few minutes and then I’d be escorted off,” said Mr. Bray, who found the barricade made a useful place to display his placards.
Steve Bray made his point behind Sky News editor-at-large Adam Boulton outside Parliament in November. PHOTO: ADRIAN DENNIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The British Broadcasting Corp. built scaffolds to raise the height of its presenters.
Within minutes of seeing the platform—which the builder said cost around $25,000—going up via Twitter one weekend, Mr. Bray said he was down at the local hardware store buying longer poles to get his signs into view—at a cost of $6.59.
“Hello BBC News tower! Some days you just have to work a bit harder,” Mr. Bray tweeted.
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What should news broadcasters on location do when people try to get into TV shots? Join the conversation below.
Some television viewers have asked the BBC to stop him. The broadcaster said producers try to avoid the distractions of protesters but can’t prohibit them from entering public space.
Even with the noise, “We just soldier on,” said Tim Lister, a producer at CNN.
On Tuesday, Mr. Bray had an international moment to shine, when President Trump made an appearance with British Prime Minister Theresa May on the steps of her official residence.
The police had blocked off roads leading to No. 10 Downing Street, but Mr. Bray said he walked through a police cordon and ended up opposite the gates. He slowly and loudly yelled, “Stop Brexit” and other slogans.
“May and Trump were stood on the doorstep of No. 10,” he said. “There’s no way in the world that both of them didn’t hear me.”
Brexit has ruled the airwaves across Britain for months, and the game of cat-and-mouse between protesters and broadcasters has intensified with every crunch vote or missed deadline. The country’s departure date from the trading bloc has approached and been pushed back twice. Lawmakers have collectively rejected every Brexit option.
Mr. Bray said he has lost count of the number of times police have escorted him off the green outside Parliament. That led him to resurrect an earlier aspect of his strategy. “If you can’t be seen, you’ve got to be heard,” he said.
In September 2017, more than a year after the people of Britain voted to leave the EU and lawmakers were endlessly debating how the country would carry that out, Mr. Bray began simply standing outside Parliament and shouting “Stop Brexit!”
‘Stop Brexit Steve’ and other protesters last month. PHOTO: DINENDRA HARIA/LONDON NEWS PICTURES/ZUMA PRESS
Others joined in, and the noise carried to the lawmakers inside. The cry can be heard on an official audio recording of parliamentary proceedings—interrupting an actual debate on Brexit.
More recently, Mr. Bray has used a megaphone given to him by an 82-year-old woman who is against Brexit. The simple cone doesn’t contravene laws banning “amplified noise equipment” outside Parliament, but it has brought broadcasters near their wits’ end.
Veteran newscaster Jon Snow, showing extreme exasperation as only a British person can, gently called out during a live shot: “Could you possibly, please, just be quiet for a moment? Thank you so much.”
Mr. Bray has been spoofed on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” Georgina Wright, the Brexit specialist who was being interviewed in the clip, said she didn’t feel annoyed by the protester, “just British and embarrassed.”
Mr. Bray’s antics have transformed dry discussions on the U.K.’s trading relationship with the EU into viral hits. “Quite a few people have said to me, ‘My kids now watch the news because of you,’ ” said Mr. Bray, who is from South Wales, part of the U.K. that voted to leave.
He has earned a begrudging respect from those on the other side for his tenacity. Lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit faction, who has often had his interviews crashed by Mr. Bray, said, “I admire people who take politics so seriously they are willing to take such measures.”
On a recent day, Mr. Bray asked his core team of about eight protesters, some equipped with walkie talkies and body cameras, to arrive earlier than usual so they could plant EU flags near Parliament’s gates before the rival protesters of the “Leave Means Leave” camp—in reference to the “leave” referendum of 2016—got there.
“It’s like a military machine, it’s civil war in all but blood,” said Mr. Bray.
The group, titled Stand of Defiance, European Movement—acronym: Sod ’Em—has raised enough money from people who support remaining in the EU for Mr. Bray to stay in a $256-a-night Airbnb moments away from Parliament. In recent days, he has signed a nine-month lease on an apartment nearby. “It’s such a critical time we needed to be here every minute,” he said.
On some weekends Mr. Bray has stayed in a south London flat lent by a remain supporter. One of his roommates there was a Boris Johnson impersonator—whose gimmick is to take the mickey out of the hard-line pro-Brexit politician.
When Brexit news abated over Easter and the TV towers were removed to allow the grass to recover, Mr. Bray also regrouped.
He commissioned some new placards “to keep them current,” he said. The slogan on one of his latest simply reads, “I’m not going away.”
Mr. Bray waves a European Union flag outside Parliament. He has been protesting Brexit for months. PHOTO: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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