Vernon Downs Closed Today
-
- February
- 11
Since the state Legislature can’t reach a deal on providing additional revenue to some harness tracks, Vernon Downs officially closed its doors this morning, citing ongoing losses.
Here’s what the track said this morning.
“Since the Assembly has been promising to pass legislation addressing this issue for over eight months and had once again failed to deliver, Jeff Gural, principal owner of the local racino, ordered the gaming facility closed effective at 1:00 a.m. today.”
“Gural has said that the closing is temporary and the racino will be reopened as soon as the legislature votes in favor of the bill which was originally intended to give all eight racinos in the state $60 million more in additional revenue.”
Gural said “My hope is that the legislation can be worked out quickly so that our employees can come back in a number of days rather than a number of weeks. This uncertainty puts a terrible burden on our employees and their families. It’s unfortunate that the large tracks, namely Saratoga, Yonkers and Finger Lakes made unwarranted last minute demands which stopped the legislative process cold.”
Gural has said that he will close Tioga Downs in a few weeks if the tracks aren’t allowed to keep additional revenue.
State lawmakers said Monday that they may try to increase the tracks’ piece as part of a larger deal on a contract for the New York Racing Association, which has been without a contract since Jan. 1.
This entry was posted
on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
