Len Lazarick

Slots for veterans enlisted to help gaming bill pass

Slots for veterans enlisted to help gaming bill pass

by | Aug 14, 2012 |

For years, veterans posts have come to Annapolis trying to get slot machines and the money they bring in to help them survive.The vets on the Eastern Shore have had slots at their posts for some time, but year after year, the House Ways & Means Committee has refused the same privilege to veterans groups in the rest of Maryland. Suddenly, Tuesday afternoon, the House veterans caucus was told that slots for vets everywhere in Maryland was going to be an ornament on the Christmas tree that the gaming bill had become. Delegates saw it as a blatant attempt to buy votes.

Gambling expansion sent to House with major tax breaks for casinos

Gambling expansion sent to House with major tax breaks for casinos

by | Aug 14, 2012 |

In a mostly party-line, 13-to-7 vote Monday night, the House of Delegates Ways & Means Committee approved gaming expansion legislation that included what had been the major stumbling block for House leaders when they derailed a similar deal back in June. The bill gives tax breaks for casino operators just three months after legislators approved income tax hikes on 300,000 Marylanders.

Gambling bill slows to freight-train pace in House, but still moving

by | Aug 13, 2012 | ,

The bill to expand casino gambling in Maryland that came out of the Senate Friday evening on an express train has slowed to freight-train speed in the House. The House Ways & Means Committee held a five-hour hearing Friday as the Senate was wrapping up work on the bill, and the final witness provided a cautionary tale of what happened in another state where he was a member of the legislature.

Senate passes gaming bill; Baltimore City delegation urge Caesars to hire local residents, including ex-cons

by | Aug 10, 2012 |

UPDATE: the Maryland Senate in a 28-14 vote Friday evening passed the bill to expand gambling with table games and sixth casino in Prince George’s County.
Eight Democrats joined six Republicans in opposing the bill backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley and Senate President Mike Miller. The bill passed largely without change from the committee version after the Senate rejected over two dozen floor amendments offered mostly by Republicans.

No refuge from gambling craze in the heat of a special session

by | Aug 10, 2012 |

There’s no escaping the gambling craze, whether in the dripping heat of Annapolis in August or the sunny beaches of a cooler Rhode Island.

Last Saturday, barely 15 minutes after setting up my beach chair in Bonnet Shores, R.I., a plane dragging an advertising sign flew over this lovely cove where the Atlantic meets Narragansett Bay. “Vote Yes on 1,” the sign said. “Table Games = R.I. Jobs.”

Even little Rhody is into the latest jobs scheme. If you can’t gin up jobs in manufacturing – say at a decades-old steel mill – expand gambling and create other jobs.

Audio: Pit bull owners demonstrate and testify on legislation

by | Aug 10, 2012 |

Duane Keenan for MarylandReporter.com provides this audio report on the demonstration and then the hearing on legislation to overturn a court ruling that declared all pit-bulls as inherently dangerous dogs. The ruling does not sit well with owners of friendly pits. They point out that it is wrong to discriminate against one particular kind of dog. Also, holding landlords responsible for the actions of pet-owning tenants means some dog owners may have to get rid of their four-footed family members.

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