Emerald Track Hits Stride Today Auburn Horse Track Operators Downplay Effect Of Picket Lines

The last flowers were planted and the final decorations were in place in anticipation of today’s grand opening of Emerald Downs - Western Washington’s new thoroughbred racetrack.

But labor leaders promised an element that track officials would rather not have - picket lines.

Teamsters Local 117 and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 8 officials contend track majority owner Ron Crockett promised them that he would use union labor to staff the track.

Crockett said his only promise to labor was that the track would be built by union workers.

Gov. Mike Lowry and King County Executive Gary Locke will skip the grand opening rather than cross picket lines, their spokesmen said.

Lowry tried to resolve the track-union dispute by bringing both sides together in Tacoma earlier this month, but no agreement was reached.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the King County Labor Council said pickets would remain in place throughout the racing season.

Crockett, who also is president of Emerald Downs’ parent company, Northwest Racing Associates, said a union boycott for the entire 100-day racing season could lead to layoffs of 133 of the track’s 700 employees, cost the state more than $500,000 in parimutuel taxes and reduce the amount of money bettors can win by almost $1.5 million.

Despite the dispute, Emerald Downs said Wednesday it expects an overflow crowd to pack the six-floor grandstand for opening day.

The $82 million racetrack offers seating for about 7,000 people and 5,200 parking spaces at the 166-acre site.

“Our goal is just to make sure that everybody leaves here saying ‘We had a good time,’” Emerald Downs marketing director Ben Cambra has said. “I think we’ll be able to do that.”

The track will offer live horse racing, one simulcast race per day, an attractive environment and a chance to remember what it was like to spend a day at the races at Longacres, the Renton track that closed in 1992.

The opening of Emerald Downs comes at a time when many in the horse-racing industry are complaining about increasing competition from casinos and other gambling venues.

The track has been limited by state law to showing only one live race per day from other tracks instead of a full simulcast schedule which other tracks use to bring in revenue.

Races at Emerald Downs, however, will be simulcast at 20 or more other sites in the state and at several other tracks in the country and in Canada. “What racing hasn’t done enough of in the past is focus on the entertainment value of this sport,” Cambra said earlier. “We’ll be competing for the entertainment dollar.

“We have the advantage of being a new venue in an established horse-racing market,” he said.

“Our success is not a slam-dunk certainty, but personally, I’m very confident about it.”

Cambra’s marketing plan includes free coffee and doughnuts for weekend visitors on tours of the horse barns and training facilities; live bands between races on Friday nights; live telecasts of major sporting events at Champions, the track’s sports bar; a “newcomers center” to help rookies figure out how to bet a race and video library stations that will allow bettors to call up videotapes of past performances of their favorite horses.

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