A little less Misery, Pain and Suffering in the universe.

With slots out, Ruffin says he'll close track
BY HURST LAVIANA AND DION LEFLER
The Wichita Eagle

Wichita Greyhound Park will close within three months after Sedgwick County voters decided Tuesday to not allow slot machines at the financially strapped track.

As he watched election returns at the track with about 100 supporters, owner Phil Ruffin talked about how he was losing $200,000 a month and had kept the track open only in hopes of adding slots to the wagering mix.

"We can't continue these losses," he said.

The park employs 250 people, and all will lose their jobs here, Ruffin said. A handful might transfer to another track he owns.

The park's closing also will mean the end of Wichita Greyhound Charities, which gave a portion of its proceeds to local organizations.

Early election returns showed the slot machine referendum narrowly leading through much of the night. But when the final returns were posted on three big-screen televisions, a stunned silence filled the room. The referendum had lost by 343 votes out of more than 100,000.

"I'm sorry, everybody," Ruffin said. "We gave it everything we had and lost by just a few hundred votes."

Earlier in the day, Ruffin said a best-case scenario for him would be for voters to approve the slot machine referendum while rejecting a proposal to allow a casino in Sedgwick County. With no other gambling outlet in the county, Ruffin said, the greyhound park would have flourished.

Had the proposition passed, Ruffin had planned to push forward with an 80,000-square-foot expansion that would have required twice as many employees.

As the early returns came in Tuesday night, it appeared those plans would come to fruition.

The mood at the track was cautiously celebratory, and a cheer rose from the crowd anytime a new set of returns showed the dog track measure winning.

"Yes!" remarked Rep. Vince Wetta, D-Wellington, clenching his fist in a victory gesture. Wetta owes his political career to his stance in favor of a casino in Sumner County, which is likely now that Sedgwick County has rejected expanded gambling.

"I told everybody if I had a vote, I'd vote 'no, yes,' " he said. That would have meant a double victory for Wetta's Sumner County-based district because Anthony Downs, a small horse and dog track there, would have gotten a share of the slot income from the Wichita track.

But optimism turned to shock and sorrow when the final returns showed that slots had come up a loser.

"I thought we were going to win, at least at the track," Ruffin said. "The polls were absolutely dead wrong.

"We've tried for 10 years to get this (election) to happen," he said. "Now they've said what they want to say and so, that's fine.

"'No' ran a great campaign," he said. "Apparently our message didn't get across."

Within moments, Ruffin and his guests filed out of the room, leaving a group of employees, some of whom were weeping, to clean up.

The rejection of slots also will have an impact on local charities.

Over the past five or six years, the track has distributed about $5.5 million to local charitable causes, although the numbers have dropped substantially as the track's operating losses have mounted.

It's a big disappointment, said Evies Cranford, whose wife serves on the board of Wichita Greyhound Charities.

"We have been able to help a lot of youngsters in the community," he said. "That's all going to be lost. I think that's a travesty."

The $14 million Wichita Greyhound Park opened in September 1989 and drew 762,661 visitors during its first full year of operation. Since then, however, attendance and has steadily dwindled, thanks in part to competition from regional casinos.

Ruffin bought the park in 1997 for a reported $10 million, and said he has been losing money ever since.




Anyone want some hounds? http://www.gpamo.org/