West Virginia Senate rejects greyhound bill
The Senate from West Virginia has rejected a bill that would’ve eliminated the West Virginia Greyhound Breeding Development Fund.
US.- The West Virginia Senate rejected a bill that would’ve eliminated the West Virginia Greyhound Breeding Development Fund. The vote happened this week and ended up in a 23-11 against it.
The bill would have eliminated the fund by July 1, as well as the transfer of wagers on table games and video lottery machines to the fund. Instead, it proposed a transfer to the Excess Lottery Revenue Fund for distribution by the Legislature.
Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said: “Whether we do it this year, next year or the year after, it is going to happen. Greyhound racing is ending all across America. There are only a handful of states that even allow it legally to occur. And we’re the only state in America that subsidizes the activity.”
Senator Bill Ihlenfeld explained: “We can’t afford to take another blow like this right now in the city of Wheeling despite some of the good things that are going on. I’m optimistic about the future of Wheeling, but I don’t want to see this happen to the city of Wheeling right now. We can’t absorb this blow right now.”
“There aren’t many industries in our state that we control,” Ihlenfeld said. “We’re getting close to being the only game in town when it comes to this industry. Instead of kicking this to the curb, we ought to embrace it. We ought to modernize it. We ought to make it even better and allow even more people to send money to West Virginia.”
