Wonderland State House hearings set

REVERE – Two bills aimed at saving Wonderland Greyhound Park from a January 2010 death sentence, imposed last year by voters, get legislative hearings Thursday.One proposal seeks to extend by two years the voter-approved deadline for ending dog racing at Wonderland and Raynham dog tracks. Another proposal would allow the tracks to remain open to simulcast dog races from other tracks for wagering purposes after live racing ends in January.The Legislature’s Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee is holding hearings on the proposals at 10 a.m. in State House rooms A1 and A2.The push by state representatives Marc Pacheco, David Flynn and James Fagan to save the tracks comes in the wake of a setback to ban opponents who sought to tie up enforcement of the deadline in court.Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley said the courts should dismiss a request by racing ban opponents for an inquest into whether ban proponents made false statements as part of their pitch to voters.”There is no need to conduct an inquest because the complaint does not allege a prosecutable violation” of state laws, Coakley wrote in a 16-page brief submitted in a case being heard in Lynn District Court.Opponents of the racing ban argue that sponsors of the ballot question misled voters by claiming dogs were kept in uncomfortably small enclosures, were only adopted at a 31 percent rate, and by making footage of cruel acts against dogs in other states appear as though they were occurring in Massachusetts.Coakley sided with backers of the ban, who called opponents’ complaints “nothing more than post-election sour grapes.” She questioned the wisdom of using the resources of the court to prosecute such complaints.Racing-ban opponents claim safeguards are in place to ensure humane treatment of race dogs. They say closing the tracks will send long-time track workers to unemployment lines and impact the lives of kennel operators in Lynn and other communities.Voters passed the ban in November by a 56-44 margin. An effort to delay the ban failed in the Senate this spring and ban proponents have been locking down votes in the House in anticipation of a possible bid there to delay implementation of the voter law.The bid to fight the ban in court is sponsored by Protection of Working Animals and Handlers (POWAAH), which filed the petition with the court “to call attention to the fact that this campaign had some issues.””If we didn’t think there was any merit to the claim, we wouldn’t have filed it. We didn’t just file it to make some noise,” POWAAH spokesman Doug Pizzi said. “We knew the remedy, if we were successful, would not be overturning the election. If the court found that certain practices were found to be violating election law, we felt it was worth bringing forward.”Christine Dorchak, who co-chaired the Committee to Protect Dogs, which led the successful ballot effort, said she was confident the court would dismiss the complaints.”It is time to move on in Massachusetts,” she said, noting that dog racing had recently ended in New Hampshire and would end in Rhode Island. “It makes little sense for Massachusetts to be the last stand for greyhound racing.”Dorchak called POWAAH’s complaint a “transparent attempt to cast a shadow over the results” of the election.”There is absolutely no merit to any of the claims,” she said. “It is very silly to talk about changing the will of the voters over computer wallpaper.”