REVERE – State Rep. Kathi-Ann Reinstein said she is not surprised by a local court challenge to the dog racing ban approved by voters last November and said she hopes it pushes back the deadline for ending racing at Wonderland Greyhound Park.
A dog racing industry group petitioned Tuesday in Lynn District Court for a judicial inquiry into allegations that proponents of last year’s winning ballot referendum banning greyhound racing committed election fraud.
Protection of Working Animals and Handlers (POWAAH) are asking for a judicial inquest into whether Question 3 supporters violated election laws prohibiting campaigns from knowingly publishing false information and offering inducements to voters.
“Right now, the ultimate goal is to call attention to the fact that this campaign had some issues,” said POWAAH spokesman Doug Pizzi.
Reinstein said she has heard stories of Question 3 supporters, prior to last November’s election, gathering signatures to put the ban on the ballot under a description of a ballot question different than the racing ban.
Ban opponents say the end of racing at Wonderland will close the track and throw workers into the unemployment lines. Reinstein agrees.
?It’s a horrible time to put a whole industry out of work,” she said.
But Question 3 proponents called the fraud claims baseless.
GREY2KUSA spokesman Carey Theil said in a statement, “These latest accusations amount to nothing more than post-election sour grapes. Greyhound racing interests will go to any length to undermine the will of the voters, including a reckless campaign of misinformation.”
GREY2KUSA, which pushed the ballot measure, said, “Voters saw for themselves the lives of endless confinement greyhounds endure at local racetracks here in our state, and the terrible injuries dogs suffer.
Question 3 passed by a large margin, and was approved in 12 of 14 counties and in nearly 290 cities and towns.
Since November, dog racing backers have argued that voters were misinformed or would cast their votes differently in light of the state’s hamstrung job market.The complaint filed Tuesday marks the latest legal turn in a battle between the industry and its critics.In 2006, Raynham-Taunton track owner George Carney won a unanimous decision at the Supreme Judicial Court against the legality of a racing ban aimed at the ballot that year, the court ruling that the petition’s inclusion of two other measures – to strengthen criminal statutes against abuse and outlaw dog fighting – rendered the measure too broad.
Mindful of challenges to the future of dog racing, Wonderland’s owners have won support from Reinstein but not the state Legislature as a whole to bring slot machines to racing tracks.
The complaint charges that the question’s sponsors misrepresented the conditions in which greyhounds are kept when they called the enclosures too small and said the dogs were subjected to cruel treatment in Massachusetts.
