-- John Brennan, Staff Writer, The Record
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ -- October 10, 2016 -- With a month
to go before voters statewide decide whether to allow casino gambling in North
Jersey, supporters face a landscape of unfavorable poll numbers, a barrage of opposition
TV and radio advertising, and the recent decision by deep-pocketed backers to
suspend their public relations campaign.
But many who have spent years dreaming of bringing a
casino to the Meadowlands Sports Complex or other locations in North Jersey
aren’t giving up just yet. Instead, they are getting together this week to
discuss ways to get their message out in non-traditional ways.
Several of the state’s most established harness racehorse
owners have met recently with leaders of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber to
talk strategy. A forum featuring the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil
Murphy and several state lawmakers on Friday is being pitched as an opportunity
to gain attention for their cause.
“Not passing this referendum would mean we are giving up
$600 million a year” in new casino tax revenues “that has to be made up in the
budget in some other way, like an increase in property taxes or income tax,”
Mike Gulotta, a longtime horseman and the owner of Deo
Volente Farms in Flemington, said in an interview at The Meadowlands Racetrack
last week.
Opponents of the casino expansion proposal — many of whom
are from Atlantic County and other areas in South Jersey — counter that adding
casinos in North Jersey would further devastate the economy of Atlantic City,
which voters handed a statewide gambling monopoly 40 years ago but now is
teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. They say Atlantic County — which in
recent years has had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country —
would also be devastated if thousands of additional casino jobs are lost. The
closure of the Trump Taj Mahal today will leave the city with seven casinos,
down from the dozen that were operating there at the start of 2014.
But Gulotta and other horsemen — like Anthony Perretti, a
Paramus native and Asbury Park resident, and Mark Ford, president of the
Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey — frame the issue in
a way that echoes what Ed Rendell said more than a decade ago when he was the
governor of Pennsylvania.
Rendell broke a logjam in public sentiment on legalizing
casinos in his state by making the case that, regardless of one’s opinion of
gambling, Pennsylvanians were spending almost a billion dollars annually at
casinos in neighboring states — especially in New Jersey. The first casino in
Pennsylvania opened in 2006, inducing many Keystone State residents to gamble
closer to home.
The half-dozen Pennsylvania casinos that have since
opened near the New Jersey state line — as well as Empire City Resorts at
Yonkers Raceway, which also opened in 2006 — lure tens of thousands of New
Jersey gamblers each month to spend their entertainment dollars out of state.
New Jersey license plates are plentiful on vehicles at
Yonkers as well as at the Mount Airy Casino in the Poconos and at the Sands
Bethlehem casino.
“The people of New Jersey are subsidizing the tax burdens
of the people of New York and Pennsylvania by gambling there,” Gulotta said.
Racehorse owners also focus on the issue of preservation
of farmland that has proven popular with voters in previous referendums.
“There are more than 200,000 acres of equine-related
farmland in New Jersey,” Gulotta said. “Do we want that to go away?”
A 2014 Rutgers University study estimated that the state
equine industry generates 13,000 jobs of which more than half — 7,000 — are
related to horse racing.
Perretti said he hoped to enlist support from
construction unions, hotel workers, veterinarians, feed manufacturers and
anyone else who would suffer economic harm from a shutdown or cutback in the
state’s equine industry and who would benefit from increased state support for
the racetracks.
The horsemen support the casino expansion proposal even
though the state’s horse racing industry might receive less than one-tenth of
the
$60 million annually in race purse subsidies that leaders
say is needed to make the tracks truly competitive with the casino-subsidized
tracks in surrounding states. They say that the gap could be diminished in the
enabling legislation that would be passed in Trenton should voters approve
casino expansion.
“The referendum guarantees us a place at the table, and
we can negotiate to get a bigger piece of the pie,” Perretti said, though
Governor Christie — who privatized the tracks five years ago — is
philosophically opposed to any industry subsidy.
Dennis Drazin, who operates Monmouth Park, has been
ambivalent about the ballot question.
“We really don’t know where he is at,” Ford, the head of
the harness racing organization, said of Drazin. “He’s an enigma. We’re
supposedly on the same team, but I have yet to see it.”
That may soon change. Drazin said in an interview last
week that he hoped to reach an agreement within a matter of days with Jeff
Gural, the operator of The Meadowlands Racetrack, that would allow for the
state thoroughbred and harness racing industries to receive $15 million each of
the revenue from a Meadowlands casino should Gural produce a winning bid to
build one adjacent to his grandstand.
“The thoroughbreds were depending on enabling legislation
that was never drafted, and never voted upon, to clarify how much benefit there
would be from the referendum,” Drazin said. “But I am in the drafting process
with Jeff, and once it’s signed then we will support the referendum.”
Mike Campbell, the executive director of the state
Thoroughbred Breeders Association, said that adding a pair of casinos in North
Jersey “will protect thousands of jobs associated with New Jersey’s equine
industry.”
The three most recent major polls on the issue show
opponents with a double-digit lead, with a Stockton University poll last week
revealing
68 percent opposition and just 27 percent support statewide.
Meanwhile, Gural and Paul Fireman — a former Reebok chief
executive who is seeking to build a $4.6 billion casino and resort complex on
the grounds of his Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City — announced last
month that they were suspending their OURTurnNJ campaign favoring the casino
expansion, citing grim polling data.
Ron Simoncini, a spokesman for the Regional Chamber, said
the organization’s “Northstars” campaign “has scraped together a small budget
to support a social media campaign and online advertising campaign” — an effort
similar to what leaders of the state’s horse racing industry are planning via
their partnership with the East Rutherford-based MWW public relations firm.
Video footage of residents expressing their support for North
Jersey casinos can be used to effectively counteract “the mercenaries being
used by the ‘no’ vote people,” Simoncini said, noting that Genting Group, the
Malaysia-based organization that owns Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct in
Queens, is helping to finance the Trenton’s Bad Bet campaign against casino
expansion.
The chamber and the harness racing association are among
the sponsors of the “mDest Tourism Conference: Press for Yes” forum at the
Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack on Friday morning. One panel focuses on the
economic impact of a Meadowlands casino, with another featuring Murphy and a
number of state legislators from both parties — Assembly Speaker Vincent
Prieto; state Sens. Paul Sarlo, Jennifer Beck and Joseph Kyrillos; and
Assemblyman Ralph Caputo.
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