ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601220098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW KENT
SOURCE: Daily Press
Colonial Downs will not need to open for limited racing this summer if a proposed bill on off-track betting facilities passes the General Assembly, a track spokesman said Friday.
Under the bill proposed by Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, the racetrack would be required to open by February 1997, one year after the first betting parlor opens in Chesapeake.
Previous legislation had required the track to open within a year of the issuing of a license for the Chesapeake parlor, granted in August. Colonial Downs had planned to hold racing at limited facilities - known as ``tent racing'' - to comply with that law.
``We'd just as soon not have to do a summer meet,'' said Colonial Downs spokesman Mike Mulvihill. ``Tent racing is not the first impression we want to make. This way, we wouldn't have to.''
Stolle originally had proposed banning Colonial Downs from opening betting parlors in Chesapeake and Richmond before the state's first horse track begins holding races.
He amended his legislation Thursday after meeting with officials from the Virginia Racing Commission, who said the original bill would have been devastating to efforts to open the track.
Mulvihill said Colonial Downs believes the new bill is ``better than the first'' but still unfair in that it does not take into account a lawsuit challenging the track's license.
``What really drives when this track will open is the lawsuit,'' Mulvihill said. ``What would be fair is to tie any legislation to that.''
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines KEYWORDS: HORSE RACING GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB