Even Bill will give Andrew a whipping with NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3
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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.
Taking Office, de Blasio Vows to Fix Inequity
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Bill de Blasio, right, with
his wife and children, was sworn into office at City Hall on Wednesday
by former President Bill Clinton. More Photos »
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: January 1, 2014
Bill de Blasio, whose fiery populism propelled his rise from obscure
neighborhood official to the 109th mayor of New York, was sworn into
office on Wednesday, pledging that his ambition for a more humane and
equal metropolis would remain undimmed.
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At Inauguration, Seeing Another Sign of Change in What the First Family Wore (January 2, 2014)
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Reporter’s Notebook: An Inaugural Pageantry, With Verse, Song and Surprise Meetings (January 2, 2014)
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Letitia James was sworn in on Wednesday as New York
City’s public advocate. Dasani Coates held the Bible.
More Photos »
In his inaugural address, Mayor de Blasio described social inequality as
a “quiet crisis” on a par with the other urban cataclysms of the city’s
last half-century, from fiscal collapse to crime waves to terrorist
attacks, and said income disparity was a struggle no less urgent to
confront.
“We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that
threaten to unravel the city we love,” he said to about 5,000 people at
the ceremony, many beneath blankets on a numbingly cold day.
Mr. de Blasio, 52, the first liberal to lead City Hall in two decades,
delivered his critiques as his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, whose
Wall Street pedigree and business-first approach to governance seemed to
embody the city’s current gilded era, sat unsmiling a few feet away.
It was only one of many potent symbols of change that dominated a ceremony unlike many before it.
Gone was the more solemn air of inaugurations past, replaced by the
booming strains of disco, soul, and dance music by the Commodores,
Marvin Gaye and Daft Punk, spun by a local D.J. stationed high above the
audience. (Even Hillary Rodham Clinton, seated onstage, swayed with the
music.)
Several of the nation’s pre-eminent Democrats — including Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo and former President Bill Clinton, who administered the oath of
office over a Bible once owned by Franklin D. Roosevelt — appeared with
Mr. de Blasio on the dais, celebrating the elevation of a party stalwart
with whom they had close ties.
The ceremony was filled with an unusually open airing of the city’s
racial and class tensions, including a poem bristling with frustration
about “brownstones and brown skin playing tug-of-war,” a pastor’s words
about “the plantation called New York,” and fierce denunciations of
luxury condominiums and trickle-down economics.
Mr. de Blasio, a careful custodian of his image, took pains to
choreograph the appearance of a newly approachable and inclusive City
Hall, arriving with his family on the subway and walking onstage to
doo-wop tunes. Even the placement of cameras seemed to ensure that only
the dignitaries on stage and ordinary New Yorkers arrayed behind them
would be shown — and not the many lobbyists and political operatives in
the crowd.
And although he warned that his administration’s work “won’t be easy,”
Mr. de Blasio made only passing reference to the myriad and daunting
challenges — fiscal, political and structural — that he will face in
enacting his ambitious policy agenda.
Several of his proposals, including his signature plan to pay for
prekindergarten classes by raising taxes on the wealthy, are at the
mercy of the governor and state legislators in Albany. Other elements of
his platform are expected to be opposed by powerful interests in the
city’s corporate classes.
But in his first hours as mayor, Mr. de Blasio opted to focus more on
his aspirations for the office, and fulfilling a campaign promise to
change the tone of city government on Day 1.
The mayor’s transition team held a ticket lottery so that ordinary New
Yorkers could attend the inaugural ceremony, and the City Hall plaza was
quickly filled with a diverse crowd that punctuated speeches with
impromptu cheers, lending the feel of a jamboree to an event typically
more formal than festive.
From her seat in a back row, Justina Taylor, 16, of the Bronx, started
singing along with a Jay-Z song. “This is my kind of inauguration,” she
said.
Light moments abounded. The young children of Scott M. Stringer, who was
being sworn in as the city comptroller, squealed as their father sought
to recite the oath of office and drowned out his words. Mr. Stringer
laughed: “He’s not quite ready for a television commercial,” he quipped —
a sly reference to the celebrity that Mr. de Blasio’s 16-year-old son,
Dante, attained after starring in his father’s campaign ads.
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Even Dante knows that Andrew Cuomo and the President of Nassau OTB can't pick and choose one Easter Sunday and one Palm Sunday over the other. Dante is taking bets that the counsel for NYC OTB Ira Block Esq. was correct n his opinion in most all respects. The kid can pick a winner?
Sports
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M
By Jerry Bossert / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, April 14, 2003, 12:00 AM
New
York City Off-Track Betting made history yesterday, taking bets on Palm
Sunday.
Since 1973, when Sunday racing was made legal in New York State, race
tracks have been allowed to operate every Sunday except for Palm Sunday
and Easter Sunday.
While Aqueduct kept its doors shut, NYCOTB had its betting parlors
open despite a letter from the New York State Racing and Wagering Board
stating that it couldn't do so.
"We're not a race track," NYCOTB president Ray Casey said. "OTB's
business is a simulcasting business.
" Bettors responded by wagering an estimated $2 million yesterday on tracks from around the country, including Keeneland in Kentucky and Gulfstream Park in Florida. While in the past NYCOTB has respected the law and shut down on Palm Sunday, it took a chance this time because its business is down. "With the weather being the way it's been our handle has been off significantly," Casey said. "Our lawyers felt from their point of view that we could open (yesterday).
" The law says race tracks can't open. It doesn't mention OTBs. "I respect the Racing and Wagering Board and I have the utmost respect for chairman Michael Hoblock but I felt we're right on this one," Casey said. The NYSRWB didn't return phone calls yesterday but said on Saturday it would meet this week to discuss fines and penalties it can impose on NYCOTB. "This isn't personal," Casey said. "I just didn't agree with the board's interpretation.
" Bettors responded by wagering an estimated $2 million yesterday on tracks from around the country, including Keeneland in Kentucky and Gulfstream Park in Florida. While in the past NYCOTB has respected the law and shut down on Palm Sunday, it took a chance this time because its business is down. "With the weather being the way it's been our handle has been off significantly," Casey said. "Our lawyers felt from their point of view that we could open (yesterday).
" The law says race tracks can't open. It doesn't mention OTBs. "I respect the Racing and Wagering Board and I have the utmost respect for chairman Michael Hoblock but I felt we're right on this one," Casey said. The NYSRWB didn't return phone calls yesterday but said on Saturday it would meet this week to discuss fines and penalties it can impose on NYCOTB. "This isn't personal," Casey said. "I just didn't agree with the board's interpretation.
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