BY JIM BARON

LINCOLN — Tony Tutalo’s business may be just three weeks from bankruptcy, but there is not much he can do about it besideswatch the calendar and hope the General Assembly comes back to pass a bill over the governor’s veto that will keep greyhound races running at Twin River.

Tutalo, 62, is one of the 12 kennel owners at Twin River who will be out of a job on Aug. 8 if Gov. Donald Carcieri’s veto of a bill that extends the greyhound racing season to 200 days is allowed to stand. The current law mandates 125 racing days and Twin River has announced that there will be no mechanical rabbit for the dogs to chase around the oval after Aug. 8 if that law remains in place. In recent years, Twin River has operated about 200 racing days a year.
That will leave Tutalo, who says he has worked at the track since it switched from thoroughbred horses to dogs in 1977, with no choice but to join Twin River in declaring bankruptcy, he told The Times Wednesday. The dog track/casino is attempting to negotiate a bankruptcy agreement with its creditors in bankruptcy court and says the nearly $10 million a year expense of subsidizing the races threatens  to complicate that deal and may cause it to fall through.
State law requires pari-mutuel waging at any facility that houses the RI Lottery’s video slot machines, but the Carcieri administration has made it clear that it feels the greyhound races are an unnecessary expense and would not mind if the dogs stopped running. The jai alai games that allowed Newport Grand to host video slot machines were stopped several years ago with the approval of the governor and General Assembly.
“The type of business we are in, you have to take care of the greyhounds,” the Johnston resident said, “you can’t just cut expenses in anticipation that something might happen because the animals have to be cared for. It’s not like another business, where you can shut down a machine or suddenly downsize. You have to maintain the level you are at to take care of those animals.”
If his kennel goes bust, Tutalo said, five of his workers will be on the unemployment line. “We have people who work for us and others who depend on us – suppliers, vendors.
The kennels at Twin River “are like a family operation,” Tutalo said. Racing, he added, “is all most of the people have done their entire careers. It is not unusual to have a husband and wife and kids all working for kennels. Should something happen, everyone in the family loses their job, not just one person.”
Supporters say about 225 jobs are at stake if the races stop, but Twin River and Carcieri administration officials question that number.
Tutalo boasts of being a lifelong Rhode Islander and says many of his fellow kennel owners are as well.
“We are obviously hopeful that the legislature will override the veto,” he said. “We’re kind of concerned that the governor would tell us that we are really not that important to the state. We’re all taxpayers. I’m a small business person for 30 years. (Carcieri) claims that he is concerned about the small business person yet he is willing to see us go bankrupt because he doesn’t think we are an important part of the state. That kind of hurts a little bit.”
The General Assembly recessed at the end of June, but leaders said they would reconvene to mop up unfinished business sometime over the summer. State House scuttlebutt has the lawmakers returning the last week of this month, but there has been no official announcement.
Sen. Frank Ciccone, who sponsored the bill to extend the dog racing season, and Rep. Charlene Lima, a member of the top House leadership have predicted the assembly will return to override the governor’s veto of the dog bill.
“We just continue to do what we’ve been doing and hopefully things will turn out in our favor, Tutalo said.
Patti Doyle, Twin River spokesperson, said this week that the facility’s owners “are going to sit tight and await the outcome of what the legislature ultimately decides. We are very much in a wait-and-see mode. We will ultimately take our direction from whatever is decided by our lawmakers.
Groups who want to see an end to greyhound racing because they feel it is cruel to the dogs have planned a rally at the State House Saturday afternoon to support Carcieri’s veto and urge legislators to not override it.
When the slot machines were coming into the then-Lincoln Park in 1992, Tutalo said dog owners agreed even though they knew their livelihood would take a hit. So, he said, they “partnered” with the state, allowing the new competition in exchange for a contract to keep the races going. When the new owners bought the track several years ago, changing the name to Twin River, the state shifted the responsibility for the dogs to the facility in exchange for a slightly larger cut of the slot machine take.
He noted that other businesses, such as GTECH, Fidelity Investments and Providence Place Mall worked out subsidies and other deals with the state over the years. “Has anyone gone to them and said, ‘Hey, the economy has gone bad, we have to take money away from you’”?
The greyhound races bring about 4,000 to 5,000 bettors a week into the facility, customers who also play the video slots, patronize the restaurants and bars and entertainment shows Twin River offers, but “we are treated with absolutely no regard at all. It doesn’t make sense to us.”
He said the new owners give the greyhound and simulcast racing no promotion, even to the point of having no signs to direct people who come in the door to the racing windows.
“Try to see a sign, try to see an advertisement, try to see any promotion at all” of the racing, Tutalo said, “it’s not there.” He added that Twin River’s advertising boasts of the video slots, Fado’s Irish Pub and the other restaurants, the Comedy Store and other entertainment, “but there is no mention of simulcast or live greyhound racing.”