Warning: Constant ABSPATH already defined in /home/flanews/public_html/wp-config.php on line 34
Capitol News Service » Blog Archive » Greyhound Guarantee

Welcome to

Capitol News Service

Florida's Best Political Coverage on Television

Greyhound Guarantee

December 18th, 2014 by flanews

Florida has the most amount of greyhound racing in the country, but as Matt Galka tells us, a strong push to put an end to that may have already started.

New Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner made a greyhound guarantee this week.

“One thing I can tell you, the first week of session we will send the injury reporting bill to the House. And it’ll be named after Mrs. Gaetz,” said Sen. Gardiner.

Vicky Gaetz, the wife of most recent Senate President Don Gaetz, pushed the bill that would require tracks to report dog injuries during last year’s session.  The bill died in the final week.

Dog tracks have been required to report Greyhound deaths since 2013…a report highlighted that 74 greyhounds died in the first 9 months of 2013 following the passage of the bill.

Jack Cory with the Florida Greyhound Association says they have no problem with reporting injuries, but the bill doesn’t do enough to protect the animal.

“I think that’s a great idea, unfortunately the bill that has been filed does not have one word of greyhound protection in it other than the title,” said Cory.

The fear from track owners is that the bill is the first step in ending dog racing in the state. The state requires tracks to run greyhound races if they want to operate other gambling games like poker and slot machines.  Animal rights groups have been pushing to separate the requirement. Something the Greyhound Association scoffs at.

“If all they’re doing is an injury reporting bill after the fact, knowing what the injuries are, than all it is is trying to backdoor mini casinos throughout the state of Florida, and do away with three thousand jobs and put eight thousand greyhounds at risk,” said Cory.

Florida is just one of seven states that still allows greyhound racing. A legislature report revealed that Florida is spending almost $3 million more dollars a year to regulate the dog races than it takes in from revenue.

Posted in State News | Comments Off on Greyhound Guarantee

Comments are closed.

copyright © 2016 by Capitol News Service | Powered by Wordpress | Hosted by LyonsHost.com