Tucson says 'no' to more dog racing

[Ptah]

Tucson City Council members have voted against a measure that would have brought more dog racing to Tucson.

In a unanimous decision, elected officials voted against giving Midtown Tavern Sports bar and Grill permission to operate an off-track betting facility.

Midtown owner Frank Silverman says he asked for the council's permission because of his customers.

The customers are asking me to bring this in, trying to give them what they want trying to make a living," Silverman told the council.

http://www.kvoa.com/story/37874990/tucson-says-no-to-more-dog-racing

[JayhawkSD]

1. Seems like a lot of false narrative here.

I do not disagree with denial of the permit. It's a neighborhood issue, and denying the permit was almost certainly a perfectly reasonable and proper decision.

I fail to see, however, in what way granting the permit would have "brought more dog racing to Tucson." Dog racing is illegal and is not done in Arizona, and permitting the number of off track betting sites in Tucson to go from six to seven would do nothing to change that. Dog racing in Arizona is zero, and granting the permit would leave it at zero.

Nor would granting the permit, as the article suggests, "encourage continued exploitation of these animals." Given that the activity is occurring in other states, and that the betting is occurring nationwide and at thousands of suites (given that Tucson alone has six), the addition of one betting site is going to have no effect whatever in encouraging the "sport." Does anyone seriously think that dog tracks are going to add features, or new dog tracks are going to be added because a few patrons in a Tucson neighborhood tavern began betting on races?

And how much new betting is going to happen in any case? Don't you imagine that the patrons who want to place bets at this tavern are doing so now at the other six locations in Tucson, and that the tavern owner merely wants to draw them from those six places to his own?