Race Tracks: Liars to the End

I just had a SHNS Capitol Brief snippet forwarded to me from the afternoon of Wednesday the 23rd. One of the stories in the brief was about Speaker DeLeo, cheer leading slots at the race tracks again, statements which have long-since past Albert Einstein's definition of insanity. The other one was about how the greyhound race tracks had seen their last day of greyhound racing (amen!). Needless to say, when the track spokesperson was quoted, I nearly died laughing.

Raynham Park spokeswoman Amy Lambiaso said 25 of the track’s 600 full-time and part-time workers had been laid off to date. Once live racing ends, another 50 to 60 will be laid off and 40 to 50 workers whose jobs are tied to dog handling will be let go. Lambiaso said all of those workers have already been notified of their layoffs and that they will be the first contacted for jobs should slot machines be authorized.

Freaking liars to the end. As has been well documented on this site, Raynham Park employs a fraction of their boasts - boasts which seemed to change daily back during the ballot campaign. George Carney famously gave two very different numbers when interviewed by two different journalists in articles published within a day of each other back during the campaign, only three months after he laughibly claimed the two tracks employed literally 6,000-8,000 people. For the record, Raynham Park, in 2002, employed only between 100-249 people, according to the US Census. It is surely many fewer people now, given how badly the industry did between 2002 and today.

From the industry that literally prevented their workers from receiving state-paid retraining, so they could continue to cry foul about their workers, using them as PR devices, I guess this is right about what you'd expect. If only George Carney and his lackeys would let sleeping dogs lie, but the truth is he'll do almost anything to keep his track open in hopes of one day getting slots. It should surprise no one that dishonest, corrupt people would seek to open a dishonest and corrupt business.