Southland Gaming – Memphis Flyer

Southland Casino Racing

Live greyhound racing will end at Southland Casino Racing by December 2022, casino officials announced Thursday afternoon, in an agreement with the Arkansas Greyhound Kennel Association.

That agreement will phase out dog racing at the West Memphis race track over the next three years, beginning next year and ending no later than December 31, 2022, officials said Thursday.

The agreement was contingent on the Arkansas Racing Commission’s approval of a Southland petition that the facility was not required to continue conducting live greyhound racing in order to retain its casino license. The commission approved the petition early Thursday.

Southland Casino Racing

Contract talks with the kennel association were stirred as its contract with Southland was set to expire at the end of the year. Those discussions included the “the current national climate for live greyhounds racing and what that might mean to racing’s future in Arkansas.”

Southland said in a statement Thursday that greyhound racing in the United States has seen a ”marked and steady decline and now exists in only six states.” In November 2018, Florida voters passed an amendment to end greyhound racing in the state by 2021. Also, “independent polling has indicated that such an initiative would pass if placed before Arkansas voters,” according to Southland officials.
Southland Casino Racing

“The kennel association and Southland agreed that given these factors we needed an agreement that would provide certainty and clarity for the future by ending live racing via an orderly process and on our own terms,” said David Wolf, president and general manager of Southland Casino Racing.

Robert Thorne, president of the Arkansas Greyhound Kennel Association, said, “we want to avoid a disruptive and abrupt end to live racing to the benefit of all parties, including everyone who has a job at stake.”

The phased-out ending of greyhound racing at Southland will reduce 2019’s 6,656 races to 4,992 in 2020. In 2021, 3,994 races will be held, and that number will be reduced to 2,662 races in 2022.
Southland Casino Racing

Wolf said the gradual phase-out is also needed to provide a long enough period of time to accommodate the adoption of about 1,200 greyhounds that now race at Southland. Both Southland and the kennel association are strong supporters of the Mid-South Greyhound Adoption Option, which works to place retired Southland racing greyhounds in homes, the groups said.

Southland Casino Racing

“We know it’s going to take time to adopt out the greyhounds, and our commitment is to make sure every greyhound that has raced at Southland finds its forever home,” Wolf said.

Animal Wellness Action, a national organization promoting legal standards against cruelty, applauded the announcement Thursday.

“We applaud Southland and its parent company Delaware North for getting this deal over the finish line,” said Wayne Pacelle, founder of Animal Wellness Action (AWA). “AWA and the Center for a Humane Economy, working with GREY2K USA Worldwide, have been urging the Buffalo-based gambling and food service company that owns Southland Casino Racing in West Memphis, Arkansas to develop a plan to end racing. This is a short phase-out, and it’s good for dogs and for Southland and its reputation.”

Southland began racing greyhounds in West Memphis when it opened in 1956.

Southland Casino Racing

Memphis and Shelby County have had their share of referenda to deal with lately, and another one, for a modest raise in the city sales tax, will shortly be upon city residents. Hold your breath, folks, for we are about to suggest yet another way — although there are so many built-in stops on the way to it that it can hardly be styled as an express route.

What we propose is that our representatives in Nashville, who include both the majority leader and minority leader of the state Senate, stir themselves to the end of another constitutional convention, like, say, the one for a state lottery that took former state senator (now Congressman) Steve Cohen almost two decades to achieve. Though it has not been without problems, the lottery seems to have paid off, and so, we hazard, would the one we propose, if enacted.

This one would be for the creation of local-option casino gambling, and, yes, we know that all such attempts to pass such legislation so far have been nipped in the bud by anti-gaming forces. All the same, we recommend trying again, and we regard the ultimate fate of a new bill to allow wine in grocery stores on a local option basis as a model of sorts. The wine-in-grocery-stores bill is a mere statute and does not involve a constitutional amendment, but its major feature, that which likely separates its fate from all the similar (and defeated) measures which preceded it, is the provision for local referenda. By the candid admission of its sponsor, state senator Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, that was enough to take some of the heat off nervous legislators, and it was enough to gain the bill the support and co-sponsorship of the speakers of both House and Senate.

By their nature, constitutional amendments require a referendum process, and, in addition to the case of the lottery, other such amendments have succeeded — like one in the mid 1990s to legalize pari-mutuel betting (again by local option). The only problem with that one was that it came only after racetrack gambling had hit its peak and gone out of style, and attempts in Shelby County to exploit the referendum victory never got properly subsidized by investors.

Two recent speaking appearances in Memphis indirectly underlined the imperative for a renewed effort. Two weeks ago, Convention & Visitors Bureau head Kevin Kane dramatized for Kiwanis Club members the rude fact that Memphis stands to lose tourist and convention traffic to Nashville, attracted by an expansive new hotel/convention center complex in the state capital.

And this week, Troy Keeping, president and general manager of Southland Park in West Memphis, outlined for Memphis Rotarians the dramatic economic benefits that have accrued to our Arkansas neighbor city through gaming upgrades to the track facility.

To employ an obvious metaphor, an attempt to spin the political and legislative wheels to the end of making gaming legal in Shelby County would be a gamble. But the possibility is there, and, as they say, we’ve got to do something.