Claude Solnik
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.
It is important for the state Legislature to pass a law that would end religious exemptions for vaccinations in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a news conference June 12, 2019, at the state Capitol. Joseph Spector, Albany Bureau Chief
ALBANY - The state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo appear set to end a religious exemption for vaccinations in New York amid an outbreak of measles in parts of the state.
The state Senate is expected to vote on the measure Thursday, and the Assembly is set to move the bill to the floor for a vote in the coming days.
On Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo implored the Legislature to act, saying public health trumps religious freedom in this case.
"It's a public health crisis. I understand freedom of religion. We all do. We respect it. I've heard the anti-vaxxers theory, but I believe both are overwhelmed by the public health risk," Cuomo told reporters.
The measure would drop an exemption from vaccinations due to religious beliefs, making only health reasons the only way to avoid vaccines in order for children to attend school or day care.
The planned vote
The bill's Senate sponsor, Brad Holyman, said Wednesday the Senate is expected to vote on the bill Thursday, saying the vote is an important step in protecting the health of New Yorkers.
As of June 2, there were 255 confirmed reported cases of measles in Rockland County since the outbreak started last October. The outbreak has spread in parts of Brooklyn, as well as other states.
Measles cases exceeded 1,000 nationwide in the first six months of 2019 – the highest in 27 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
"Hopefully with our vote tomorrow, we can avoid a future outbreak of vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles," Hoylman, D-Manhattan, told the USA Today Network's Albany Bureau on Wednesday.
"Throughout this crisis, I’ve been mostly concerned about children, pregnant women, infants and adults who through no fault of their own can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons or because they are too young."
Gaining support
Robert Kennedy Jr. speaks at an anti-vaccine rally in Albany on Tuesday. State lawmakers are debating a bill that would end religious exemption for vaccines. Chad Arnold, Staff Writer
For months, supporters have pushed to have the bill in a bid to join California in ending the exemption.
But anti-vaccination advocates, particularly among the Orthodox Jewish community, have railed against any changes, saying they have a religious right to refrain from needing the vaccines for themselves or their children.
But as measles spread, the bill gained more support.
A Siena College poll released Monday showed voters supported ending the religious exemption for vaccinations by 84% to 13%.
"The responsibility for the government of the state of New York is, yes, to protect the constitutional rights of individuals, but it is also to protect the public health," Cuomo said.
He said he could try to take executive action to address the issue, but "the legislative action would be the most powerful course."
Moving in the Assembly
On Thursday, the Assembly Health Committee is expected to pass the bill, and then it would head in the coming days to the Assembly floor for a vote, according to the Health Committee's chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan.
"After months of extensive discussion the Assembly Majority Conference has come to the conclusion that it wants this bill on the Assembly floor," Gottfried said in a statement. "The Health Committee majority's responsibility is to move the bill forward."
Existing law requires all children to receive certain immunizations for poliomyelitis, mumps, measles, diphtheria, rubella, HiB, hepatitis B and varicella.
The law, however, provides an exemption when a physician certifies that the immunization may be detrimental to a child's health or whose parents "hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary" to the vaccination law.
That religious section would be stripped if the bill is signed into law.
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