After their enterprise was practically destroyed by poll initiative a decade in the past, the house owners of Raynam’s as soon as booming greyhound monitor plan for his or her principally shuttered canine racing park to have its day once more.
“This is almost unchanged from when I was a kid,” Chris Carney, the third of his surname to run Raynham Park, mentioned as he walked by means of the outdated clubhouse, the decor round him proving his level properly sufficient.
A stroll by means of the constructing is a visit by means of time.
A stained drop ceiling hangs above worn geometric carpets. Heavy outdated tube televisions dot the playing ground, surrounded by first-generation flat screens. The wooden accents are oak veneered and the tables are chipped laminate, flanked by open-back, cracked vinyl-covered chairs. The place is as clear as an 80-year-old playing parlor could be, however displaying the damage of time.
A crowd of a few dozen arrives for opening and to stake a declare on their common seats. Some play Keno earlier than the horses begin working elsewhere and bets are positioned through simulcast. The room nonetheless smells of outdated cigarette smoke, although nobody’s been allowed to gentle something in there for greater than a decade.
Like smoking, due to a change within the legislation and as a consequence of public opinion, there isn’t any racing in Raynham Park both, although the remnants of that period nonetheless stand, for now.
“This will all have to come down,” Carney mentioned, earlier than turning his consideration to the stays of the canine monitor exterior. “It’s really sad to see it like that. You should have seen this place in the ’80s.”
Back then, when the greyhounds nonetheless chased mechanical rabbits across the sand and loam of the racing monitor, the room could be crammed to overflowing. A standard day noticed 3,000 race followers, Carney mentioned. The now clunky four-inch-thick screens lining the window, which used to miss the grandstand, had been premium seating then. The monitor closed the books on the last decade after dealing with $240 million in bets in 1989.
“Those were the best years,” 94-year-old George Carney Jr. mentioned. The enterprise was chewed away little by little after that, he mentioned.
Competition for the commonwealth’s racing tracks had come principally from the state lottery through the ’70s and ’80s, the elder Carney mentioned, however in 1992 Foxwoods Casino opened.
“We survived that,” he mentioned. “It took some of our betting, but we survived.”
A poll initiative in 2000 aimed to make canine racing unlawful, proponents mentioned, out of concern for the security of the canines. The business fought again, and survived that too.
In 2008 issues went otherwise.
“That same group that tried it earlier came back and got it through,” George Carney Jr. mentioned. “That hurt a lot.”
The Massachusetts Greyhound Protection Act handed by the desire of the voters in 2008, forcing an finish to canine racing within the state by 2010.
From their top of about 500 workers, the monitor now employs lower than 100.
The house owners have saved issues alive as greatest they may, longtime worker Sharon Butts mentioned.
“When (voters) changed that law, they just weren’t thinking about how all those jobs were gone,” she mentioned. “They’ve tried to keep the place going, they really have. It’s like a family here.”
The monitor missed the bid for a on line casino license when the state expanded playing in 2011. The Legislature might have saved them with sports activities betting, made authorized simply this summer time.
That legislation features a provision granting license eligibility to present tracks. The monitor at Raynham, regardless of being principally grass, weeds and the odor of rot at this level, nonetheless qualifies.
The Carneys aren’t hesitating. When the legislation’s passage turned clear, George Carney Jr. purchased a further 13 acres subsequent to the present park. The household has already begun development on a standalone sports activities betting parlor there which is able to, they are saying, be the biggest of its variety within the nation.
The household hopes the brand new facility, a “60,000 square foot sportsbook that will include more than 30,000 square feet of gaming space, two restaurants, several bars, private function rooms and capacity for 2,000 patrons,” based on a household spokesperson, will entice a brand new crowd to Raynham Park.
“This younger generation likes to go out, but there isn’t a whole lot to do around here,” Carney mentioned. “I really think this will be a destination for the older college students in the area.”
The facility will open subsequent 12 months, someday in April or May, and relying on how lengthy the Gaming Commission takes to implement the brand new legislation. Chris Carney mentioned he’s not in a rush.
“I want to do it right,” he mentioned.
He hopes to rent about 200 folks for the brand new enterprise, he mentioned, bringing the employees to 300.
“This will be good for Raynham,” he mentioned. In the 80s, town used to get an annual about $500,000 test from the park’s revenues.
Chris Carney mentioned he can solely hope that sports activities betting does that properly.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”