The Tucson Greyhound Park is a place where animals are confined in dark and small cages most of the day, drugged, abused and mistreated. It is a place of greed and detrimental to the economy in Arizona.
The Arizona Department of Racing has found many violations, but until now, it has not taken any effective actions to guarantee the welfare of the greyhounds and enforce the laws.
Enough is enough! The excessive amount of violations that have already occurred at Tucson Greyhound Park send a clear message: CLOSE THE PARK NOW!
The Tucson Greyhound Park is a place of shame for Arizonans and should be closed for the following reasons:
· - Thousands of animals have been officially reported as injured or dead.
· - Several greyhound racing statutes have been ignored; including Arizona state regulation (Disposition of Greyhounds) R19-2-329 B. which states: "Every effort shall be made to adopt greyhounds not used for racing or breeding."
· - Tucson Greyhound Park is a cheap end-of-the-line track. If dogs don’t make it here, they have nowhere to go but into adoption which creates a bottleneck of dogs needing to find adoptive homes.
· - While Arizona is facing a budget crisis and many vital services are cut (including three state universities’ budgets, funding for additional student math and science and funding for a new state veterans’ home in Tucson) greyhound racing receive hardship tax credits.
· - Tucson Greyhound Park last paid state pari-mutuel taxes in fiscal year 1995-96 in the amount of $55,284. Since 1996, Tucson greyhound Park has paid no state pari-mutuel taxes at all, despite millions of dollars in gross revenues.
· - Dog racing in Arizona has been subsidized by the state and the taxpayers since the passage of a mega-tax break bill for the failing dog tracks in 1994. Tucson Greyhound Park, the first track to benefit from the bill, has not paid any pari-mutuel taxes to the state since 1996. The Tucson track’s out-of-state-owners have reaped nearly $50 million in gross profits in the last ten years!
