THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 36 lines
Residents of Manassas Park in Northern Virginia are being tantalized with the promise of easy money when they go to the polls next week on Nov. 5.
Voters there must decide if they want the Colonial Downs crew - the guys who obtained a license for horse racing years ago but so far have managed only to show an interest in off-track action - to come to town with a fancy restaurant-bar-betting parlor. The horse racing promoters are predicting $500,000 a year to the city in taxes - money the city could sorely use to replace its aging schools.
Whatever happened to supporting schools the old-fashioned way - through local taxes paid by homeowners and legitimate businesses? Whatever happened to economic development that concentrated on luring useful businesses within the city limits?
Besides that, tying education funds to gambling is a risky business and sets up the kind of dependency cities ought to avoid at all costs.
It is no accident that the Colonial Downs crowd is busy trying to set up off-track-betting parlors around the state instead of doing what it supposedly came to Virginia for: opening the first pari-mutuel track in the Old Dominion.
Critics have charged, and the track developers admit, that horse racing alone is not an economically viable enterprise. In order to make money, track owners need lots of off-track-betting action and slot machines.
Virginia voters were persuaded to vote for pari-mutuel betting back in 1989 in part because they were told it would be a big boost for Virginia's faltering horse-breeding industry.
Time and events have revealed that argument as hollow. Most Virginia voters have learned their lesson. We hope the voters of Manassas Park refuse to gamble on off-track betting. by CNB