Jim Rosica
The operators of a North Florida race track are asking the state Supreme Court to review a lower-court decision that said several Florida dog and horse tracks can’t also have slot machines.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which runs the track in Gretna, filed its request Tuesday. Gretna is about 25 miles west of Tallahassee.
The filing comes after the 1st District Court of Appeal ping-ponged on the question of whether the track could offer slot machines to its visitors.
The court ruled in May that slot machines were allowed because Gadsden County voters had approved a referendum authorizing them.
Attorney General Pam Bondi asked for a rehearing. The court then ruled 2-1 against the Gretna track.
One reason the outcome was different is because one of the judges who considered the case retired and was replaced by a different judge.
But, as the request for review says, “all four judges agreed that the question passed upon in both decisions is a question of great statewide importance and both decisions certified that question to the Supreme Court of Florida.”
That question essentially is whether slot machines are allowed outside South Florida if local voters in a particular area approve of them.
The same track had tried to run barrel racing for a pari-mutuel license that would have let them add slots and a card room.
A wide-ranging gambling bill that died last session would have allowed such racing, a rodeo-style event that Florida courts have previously ruled is not legal gambling.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
One comment
Charlie
October 23, 2015 at 10:41 am
Who cares what the voters say? Really? Let the Seminole Indians rule our State and reap all the benefits? Do you not need jobs in those rural counties across the state? And all those millions of dollars leaving our state to Biloxi. Let’s just keep outsourcing to China and Mexico while were at it.
The lawmakers need to all sit down together and make this right for the voters. It is their duty. We voted them in to represent us, not corporations or to pay back favors to the ones in their pockets.
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