Gov. Cuomo last week shot down another effort to resurrect New York City’s patronage-mill, money-pit Off-Track Betting operation.
Good for the governor, who vetoed a bill that would have allowed the Catskills OTB operation to extend its area of operation into the five boroughs — little more than two years after the New York City OTB went belly up.
With the veto, Cuomo prevented the reanimation of, in the classic words of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “the only bookie joint in the city to lose money.”
NYC OTB represented some of the worst “old” New York had to offer.
Like much else attached to NYC OTB, the legislation was partly a union payoff; it included anti-competitive language, such as a hiring preference for former OTB employees — all once-upon-a-time municipal-union members. (No wonder DC37 was pushing the bill.)
The bill deserved rejection on its merits, but the timing was also completely wrong. As the governor hinted in his veto statement, New York stands on the edge of a portentous decision — whether to approve unfettered legal gambling in the Empire State.
The Legislature next year will again consider — and most likely pass, as it did last spring — a bill legalizing table gambling.
The issue will then go to the voters as a proposed repeal of current constitutional prohibitions against casino gambling.
After that, the Legislature will determine where casinos and related gambling venues will be free to operate.
Only in that broader context should consideration be given to OTB returning to the city.
And if that does occur, it must be a completely new product. That means no preferential treatment for former OTB employees or — especially — managers who are tainted by the old ways.
That corpse needs to stay buried.