Bettor Days Ahead : Board Vows to Fix Rifts in Popular Del Mar Off-Track Wagering

After three months, off-track betting at the Del Mar Race Track is more popular and more lucrative than anticipated, but political problems involving labor unrest and a division of spoils between rival cities remain unresolved.

And for at least one track aficionado--William Murray, San Diego resident and horse-race writer and novelist--the televised experience is still a sad substitute for really Being There.

“If you’re interested in the sport as a sport, not just as a gambling venture, there is not much to recommend it,” Murray said recently. “You miss the spectacle and the feeling of being close to the animals. But you do get the excitement of having your money riding on a horse.”

For that reason, Murray is among those race fans who find the Del Mar satellite wagering operation a better bet than battling the traffic to the Los Angeles-area tracks or enduring the border wait to visit the Agua Caliente track.

Big and Getting Bigger

In terms of attendance and daily handle, off-track at Del Mar is big and getting bigger.

For the Hollywood Park meet, which began Nov. 18 and ended Dec. 24, daily attendance was 2,201 and the average handle was $423,549. For the Santa Anita meet, now under way, attendance is 2,514 and the handle is up to $498,910.

A higher handle, coupled with lower than expected overhead, means greater net revenue for the Del Mar Fair Board to use for a new $60-million, 15,000-seat grandstand to be ready, if all goes well, for the 1990 fair and racing season.

The board also wants to build a two-story, $8.5 million off-track facility to open in 1989 and serve up to 7,500 patrons on heavy betting days like the Kentucky Derby.

Fair Board general manager Roger Vitaich is pleased with the success of the off-track operation, which is expected to offer racing 250 days a year. Net revenues are 20% above projections.

“Considering we’re working with a jury-rigged facility that was never meant to accommodate satellite wagering, we’re quite pleased,” Vitaich said. “As it grows, we hope it will be more streamlined and more customized to the facility we have.”

Last Saturday, for example, both the Turf Club (admission $5) and the lower clubhouse ($2) were busy. The fact the horses were 100 miles away did not deter bettors from cheering their favorites.

“Man, I’m not cheering the horses, I’m cheering my money,” explained George Wright, 56, an East San Diego carpet cleaner.

Thrill Is Just as Great

Bill Haskins, 41, a Lakeside construction worker, said, “For many people, the excitement is just as great here on television as at the real track. Many people go to the track and never really watch the horses.”

The true horse fan, however, does watch the horses--in the paddock, in the pre-race parade, and the in race itself--and that’s why racing will never become a strictly television sport.

“The television camera cannot do a satisfactory job with a horse race,” Murray said. “The camera focuses mainly on the leaders and rarely on the entire field. It’s a very limited view of a race. You need to watch all the horses to know why they are running last or in the middle. You need that for future betting.”

Satellite wagering at Del Mar started just 38 days after Gov. George Deukmejian signed the off-track bill. In the beginning, there were bugs.

Since opening day, the Fair Board has added more televisions, more seating (including outdoor seating) and more pari-mutuel windows. No-smoking sections were added both in the Turf Club and the clubhouse.

Two complaints have persisted: The race programs are too large, and the Turf Club is still too smoky. Something about horse racing makes men turn to cigars.

Help is on the way in both regards, Vitaich said Tuesday.

A new folding and stapling machine, ordered weeks ago and expected to arrive this week, will allow programs to be folded and stapled so they will fit neatly in a side pocket. Also, a dozen additional air-filtering gizmos will soon arrive.

Bigger Woes Loom

Not so easily rectified are the larger problems of a disagreement between the Fair Board and the Service Employees International Union Local 102, and deciding how to split a slice of the off-track bonanza between Del Mar and Solana Beach.

A judge last week dismissed misdemeanor trespass complaints against SEIU local president Eliseo Medina and three other union members because of insufficient evidence. They had been placed under citizen’s arrest on opening day, Nov. 18, after allegedly refusing to leave the Fair Board offices.

Medina and other SEIU members are displeased with the Fair Board’s decision not to hire SEIU members for jobs as ticket-takers, janitors, program sellers and security personnel.

Because SEIU has a contract for Del Mar’s 43-day thoroughbred racing season, its leaders feel they have first call on the off-track jobs under the bill that brought off-track to Southern California.

The Fair Board insists that SEIU’s contract is with the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, the private nonprofit group that runs the racing season.

The board has filled the off-track jobs with members of the California State Employees Assn., which represents Fair Board workers.

Both sides are waiting for an opinion from the state attorney general’s office--which also serves as the Fair Board’s attorney--on which of the rival labor unions should be given the off-track jobs.

SEIU is also seeking a permanent injunction in San Diego Superior Court to bar the Fair Board from interfering with peaceful picketing and freedom of speech on fairgrounds property. Medina and the others have filed $30,000 false arrest claims with the state Board of Control.

“We knew that this (the Fair Board) was not the most pro-employee group that has come along,” said SEIU field representative Terrence Cavanaugh, who was arrested in a separate incident for distributing leaflets and has since had his case dismissed.

Vitaich declined comment on the labor problem because the issue is still in the courts as civil litigation.

Cities Are Squabbling

Along with the competition among labor unions for off-track jobs comes a competition between neighboring cities for part of the profits.

The law allows, but does not require, the Fair Board to earmark up to one-third of 1% of off-track revenue for either Del Mar or the county government.

The board has declined to do either, saying it feels that Solana Beach, its neighbor to the north, deserves a share. Suspicion abounds that the Fair Board, after a decade of near non-stop confrontation with Del Mar, is not eager to continue feeding a hostile political creature.

A Del Mar-backed bill by Assemblyman Dick Floyd, D-Hawthorne, that would have required the one-third of 1% to be set aside for Del Mar as the “host city” for the track died in committee last session.

Now, Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier, R-Encinitas, has submitted a bill that would require the money to be divided between Del Mar and Solana Beach, with the percentage split to be decided between the two cities.

At issue may be as much as $400,000 a year, a goodly amount to a small city. Del Mar, which has an annual operating budget of about $3.2 million, currently gets $500,000 a year from the 43-day summer racing season, but Solana Beach gets nothing.

“The citizens of Solana Beach have suffered for years, without compensation, the negative impact of activities at the fairgrounds,” Solana Beach City Manager Michael Huse said in a memo this week to City Council members.

Huse and Del Mar City Manager Kay Jimno have already had one meeting to discuss a possible formula. The Solana Beach council met Tuesday night to discuss the issue further, and the Del Mar council will meet Monday with its consultant on the issue, San Diego lobbyist Ben Clay.

Del Mar is willing to share the off-track take, aware that failure to reach accord with Solana Beach could scuttle the Mojonnier bill.

“I do believe Solana Beach should be compensated, but I don’t think a 50-50 split is equitable because it does not make up for the Fair Board’s past sins on Del Mar,” Del Mar Councilwoman Brooke Eisenberg said. “I’m not sure the citizens of Del Mar would rest easy.”