Florida’s parimutuel industry has been reeling from the recent 2-1ruling by a 1st District Court of Appeal panel that reversed itself and decided that Gretna Racing in Gadsden County cannot offer slot machines without the legislature’s authorization. The ruling sided with Governor Rick Scott’s administration and state Attorney General Pam Bondi who sought the rehearing. In May, the same court ruled slots were allowable in Gadsden County because voters had approved a referendum authorizing them. As before, the judges asked the Florida Supreme Court to determine if parimutuels can have slot machines if approved by local voters, or if they must be approved by the legislature.
Whitney Ray, a spokesman for Bondi’s office, said the attorney general was pleased the court agreed with her position on slot machines.
James Dorris, president and chief executive officer of PCI Gaming, operators of the racetrack owned by the Poarch Creek Indians, said, “We are disappointed with this reversal, and we look forward to a review from the Florida Supreme Court where we feel this issue will be resolved in our favor.” Gretna Racing attorney David Romanik, a part owner of the facility, said he too was disappointed in the court’s decision to “overrule its own very well-reasoned original opinion, but grateful that the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to review this issue of great statewide importance.”
Following the court’s May ruling allowing slots at Gretna Racing, Bondi called it a “monumental change” from existing law and asked the court to reconsider. The outcome was different this time because of the retirement of Judge Nikki Ann Clark, who had joined Judge Robert T. Benton ruling in favor of the slot machines at Gretna in May. She was replaced by Judge Ross L. Bilbrey, who was appointed by Scott. He and Judge Scott Makar, who wrote a strong dissent in May, ruled in the majority with Benton dissenting.
At issue is a 2009 law that expanded a 2004 voter-approved constitutional amendment authorizing slot machines at seven existing horse and dog tracks and jai-alai frontons in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The 2009 revision legalized slots at parimutuels. Since then, voters in Lee, Brevard, Palm Beach, Hamilton and Washington counties approved referendums allowing slots at their parimutuel tracks. Currently slots are limited to tracks in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and casinos run by the Seminole tribe.
Last year, state regulators denied the Gretna racetrack a slots license, stating the Department of Business and Professional Regulation was “not authorized to issue a slot machine license to a parimutuel facility in a county which holds a countywide referendum to approve such machines, absent a statutory or constitutional provision enacted after July 1, 2010, authorizing such a referendum.” Gretna’s lawyers argued the statute does not include the word “enacted,” and other counties besides Broward and Miami-Dade do not need the legislature’s authorization for voter approval of slots.
Bondi argued that Broward and Miami-Dade are the only counties where slots are legal, based on the 2004 voter-approved constitutional amendment. In the court’s latest ruling, Makar wrote that Bondi’s interpretation of the law was “spot on.” He wrote, “The alternative view, which would restructure the statute and change its meaning to allow slot machines to be deployed on a statewide basis without any clear authority to do so, is inconsistent with principles of statutory and constitutional construction, legislative intent, and the history of laws prohibiting slot machines in the State of Florida.”
Makar also asked the state Supreme Court to determine whether the legislature has the authority to approve slot machines outside of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
In his dissent, Benton wrote that gambling regulators’ interpretation of the law “would render superfluous the entire third clause” of the statute that deals with “any licensed parimutuel facility in any other county.” He pointed out the agency’s interpretation would mean a referendum authorizing slots only could be held if the legislature passed another law—however, “that was the status quo” before the 2009 law was enacted, Benton wrote, noting, “There was no need or purpose in enacting a statutory provision to state the obvious.”
