Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
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Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
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.
Signs of the future of the city’s Republican Party free ny const art 1 sec 3?
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), Ruth Papazian (R), Scherie Murray (R)Getty Images, Dennis A. Clark, Murray campaign
The fame and follies of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have now attracted no less than six 2020 challengers . . . in the GOP primary.
And it’s a highly diverse field that’s filed to seek the Republican line next year in the 14th District, which covers parts of Queens and The Bronx:
- Jamaican-born Scherie Murray, 38, founded her own TV production company. Her entry went viral after she told Fox News, “There is a crisis in Queens, and it is called AOC.”
- Rich Valdes, who has a WABC radio show (“Latinos for Liberty”), says “AOC stands for All Out Crazy.”
- John Cummings is a former cop who now teaches civics at a Catholic high school.
- Journalist Ruth Papazian, daughter of Armenian immigrants, is running to fight “the Green New Deal . . . and other half-baked policies that will increase unemployment in our district.”
- Miguel Hernandez is a construction contractor.
- Antoine Tucker is a young, black, tattooed businessman who says, “The media is not talking about all the great things Trump does,” and, “If black lives really mattered to Black Lives Matter they would be focused on the black-on-black crime that is destroying our communities.”
Pundits will say the 14th would never vote Republican — but, hey, what do a bunch of old white guys know? At the very least, AOC’s notoriety guarantees that a GOP challenger can raise good money nationwide (only fair, since most of her campaign cash came from out of the district).
Even if the Republican goes down in flames on Election Day, the campaign offers a breath of life to a city party that’s gone comatose if not outright embalmed.
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