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.
The Hempstead Town Board is scheduled to vote Tuesday to appoint a seventh member of the town’s Industrial Development Agency, according to its meeting agenda.
West Hempstead resident Gerilyn S. Smith, 37, would join the agency as it grapples with tax breaks granted to the Green Acres Mall in 2014 by a different IDA board. Taxpayers and elected officials believe the mall’s tax breaks caused steep tax hikes for Valley Stream residents.
The IDA, however, says a variety of factors are at play, including school budgeting practices. The IDA hosted a public meeting Thursday to hear residents’ concerns about the issue and the agency may revoke the tax breaks.
In November, six members of the IDA board who had granted the tax breaks resigned en masse before Town Supervisor Anthony Santino could fire them the next day. The IDA board, whose members are not paid, can be hired and removed by the town board.
Six members of the Town Board approved the new IDA board last year; Senior Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, the board’s only Democrat, abstained because she said she was not given ample time to review the appointees’ backgrounds.
The current IDA board members are: Arthur Nastre, who serves as chairman of the board; acting Nassau County Chief Deputy Clerk John Ferretti Jr.; Lynbrook Mayor William Hendrick; Mineola attorney Steven Raiser; Freeport pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eric Mallette; and previous IDA board member, Florestano Girardi. All are registered Republicans, as is the majority of the town board.
If appointed, Smith, who is also a registered Republican, will also serve on the town’s Local Development Corporation, which provides low interest, tax-exempt bonds to nonprofits.
Smith’s father, Gerald Wright, is former chairman of the Town of Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals, according to Goosby and previous Newsday stories. Goosby said she plans to meet with Smith before Tuesday’s meeting.
Smith could not be reached for comment on Friday. Spokesmen from the IDA and Hempstead Town did not have any information about Smith’s nomination.
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