By night, kennels at Tucson Greyhound Park are alive with clanking cages, as trainers trot their dogs out to the track. But by day, this complex of squat buildings becomes a chain-link fortress, barricaded against unwanted outsiders.
With good reason.
For nearly two years, the track has been breaking the law. And for at least one of those years, South Tucson city officials have known this, and have done nothing about it.
In 2008, the voters of South Tucson passed a measure aimed at improving the treatment of greyhounds at the track. Among other things, the Tucson Dog Protection Act forbids the dosing of female greyhounds with anabolic steroids, which contain hormones to keep them from going into heat.
But a track veterinarian—recently placed on probation by state officials for unprofessional conduct—reported that he began injections of the steroids shortly after the act was passed. Last year, he even notified state officials of his intentions.
It now appears that track officials never intended to comply with the new law. “This letter is to inform you that I will be providing testosterone shots at Tucson Greyhound Park,” Dr. Joe Robinson wrote in a Jan. 12, 2009, letter to the Arizona State Veterinary Medical Examining Board.
In an interview the following October, Robinson said he had no plans to refrain from providing steroid injections. “It’s licensed under the state of Arizona,” he told me, “and I’m doing what I’m licensed to do.”
The veterinarian’s admission is only the latest in a string of questionable practices uncovered at the aging track. Last month, Robinson’s license was placed on probation for, among other things, a failure to maintain adequate records of his work at the park. That made him the third track vet—along with Dr. Paul Pullen and the late Dr. Betty Menke—to be cited for unprofessional conduct for failing to maintain adequate records.
It’s also in addition to fines levied against the track when inspectors from the Arizona Department of Racing uncovered syringes in one of the kennels, and on another visit found a kennel awash in dog feces and fleas.
Throughout this time, city officials have done nothing to stop the apparent flouting of the voter-approved steroid ordinance. When Robinson’s actions were first uncovered by the Tucson Weekly last year, South Tucson city manager Enrique Serna cited his community’s over-stretched resources as one reason for not taking action. He also questioned whether the law was actually being broken. “I’m hearing all kinds of different things legally,” he said.
The latest turn of events began in December 2009, when a retired Pima County employee named Glenda Taylor filed a complaint with the state veterinary board, citing Robinson’s steroid injections at the track.
Robinson certainly wasn’t trying to hide his actions, which he clearly described in that January 2009 correspondence with the state medical veterinary board.
In her complaint, Glenda Taylor noted that the vet was also openly violating the South Tucson city ordinance. A state board hearing to discuss the matter was convened on Aug. 18, followed by another on Oct. 30. Though Robinson failed to appear at either hearing, his correspondence with the board was combative and, at times, sarcastic.
He continued to argue that he was simply following guidelines established by the Arizona Department of Racing, which does not prohibit steroid use for greyhounds. “I am licensed to administer testosterone for therapeutic reasons,” Robinson wrote on Dec. 16, 2009. “The town of South Tucson does not have the authoritative ability to regulate my practice of veterinary medicine as dictated by both state and federal authorities, and by attempting to do so usurps both state and federal dictum.”
Robinson went on to mock those concerned about the welfare of racing dogs at a track that has racked up numerous violations.
In a July letter, he filed his own “complaint” against any examining-board members—which included at least two fellow vets—who conduct procedures that might cause pain to an animal, such as feline declawing or ear-docking. “My official complaint is expanded to all human medical professionals on the board, including R.N.s, for not washing their hands between patients and recording this activity, if done,” Robinson wrote. “They could possibly be spreading MRSA to others. The thought of this is quite distressful to me.”
While the board ultimately decided it lacked jurisdiction over steroid use, it did fault Robinson for shoddy record-keeping and for lacking a “premise license” to practice at Tucson Greyhound Park.
Dr. Robinson, who did not return a phone call from the Weekly, had his license placed on one year of probation. He was also ordered to attend continuing-education classes, and to obtain a premise license to work at the park. (He claims to holds such a license through a Nogales veterinary clinic owned by Dr. Simon Escalada. A phone call to Escalada seeking comment was also not returned.)
Not surprisingly, Glenda Taylor is a bit disappointed with Robinson’s sanction. “He just doesn’t get it that the city of South Tucson has a new ordinance, and steroids are the issue,” she says. “He’s violating the ordinance.”
Meanwhile, track manager Tom Taylor has fashioned his own curious take on the South Tucson law. He now maintains that the ordinance prohibiting Tucson Greyhound Park from administering steroids doesn’t apply to Robinson. “We’re not doing it,” Tom Taylor says. “A licensed veterinarian is doing it. The track cannot do it, and the kennel operators cannot do it.”
But the city ordinance seems unambiguous. “No person,” it reads, “shall give or administer anabolic steroids as defined in the United States code and relevant sections of the code of federal regulations to any dog to artificially enhance performance or to suppress estrus.”
Asked about this, Tom Taylor offers Plan B: “I don’t think a city ordinance can tell a veterinarian what to do.”
He may be right—especially if the city in question does nothing to enforce its own law. Since Dr. Robinson first openly discussed injecting the dogs with steroids at Tucson Greyhound Park a year ago, the city of South Tucson has taken no action against him or Greyhound Park.
City Manager Serna suggests that’s about to change, given Robinson’s defiant admissions to the veterinary board. “If, in fact, it boils down to him flagrantly violating the ordinance and administering steroids, I’ll ask the city attorney to take appropriate action,” Serna says. “I can tell you we’re much further down the road than back when this whole thing started.”
Only time will tell.
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2010.
Let’s see…First Tom Taylor said they’d have to close the track if the ordinance passed. Next he said that they would follow the law when the voters approved the new law in 2008. Now he says “a city ordinance cannot tell a veterinarian what to do.” Want to make a bet? City ordinances frequently restrict activities more than state laws do – think about local speeding laws, for example. I guess Tom Taylor has a law degree in addition to his other accomplishments, like turning 140 dogs over to a greyhound killer and permitting a healthy dog to be euthanized because she had a broken hock when a local rescue was on its way to take and care for her. Everyone involved with this miserable place believes they are above the law, and apparently the City of South Tucson agrees. Sad. Shut this horrible place down and free the hundreds of dogs that live their from their ongoing misery.
Tucson Greyhound Park is a criminal enterprise. The dogs are routinely drugged, fed often diseased meat without it being processed to kill bacteria, and kept in cages 23 hours a day. If South Tucson won’t act, it’s time they disincorporate. Its patrons should be ashamed.
When is a vet not a vet? When he has had his license suspended. So let me get this right: This sleazeball is not only violating federal law and ignoring the results of an election but is practicing medicine without a license? Maybe the Feds will arrest him. Clearly no one is doing anything to stop him here.
Thanks for another excellent expose about the abuses at Tucson Greyhound Park, Tim.
Different issue, same park. PAYING NO TAXES. That’s right, TGP is not taxed, so they are much less an asset to South Tucson than they could be. So, voters in South Tucson, want to look into that one? Think of all the revenue you could use to assist with the “over-stretched resources,” which I read as overworked and underpaid law enforcement and fire fighting personnel. South Tucson voters take on this issue, which includes treatment of live animals and lack of taxes on as your issue. It’s your town, it is beautiful, the heritage is not found anywhere else. Please don’t loose it.
South Tucson, please hold that vet accountable. And Arizona needs to close this track – racing isn’t a sport, it’s cruelty.
Thanks Tim V. and Tucson Weekly for covering this story.
This is no surprise. The Tucson Weekly has continually written numerous articles about problems at the Tucson greyhound track which has lacked accountability and will always lack accountability.
South Tucson is as much to blame as the dog track. If you recall a South Tucson cop embezzled almost half a million dollars from his department a few years ago and nobody really cared. It wasn’t until the fed agencies started asking for an explanation that anything happened. The Tucson Citizen wrote a good article about it in 2008. Serna came off as sounding like a pompous ass. What’s changed?
Thank you Tucson Weekly and Tim Vanderpool for pursuing the ugly truth.
Another example of corruption and greed in Tucson. How much were they paid to let this gross violation of the law and cruelty to this animals. I think we should call in the National Humane Society and Peta. Lets put a stop to this lawlessness.
Once again, thank you Tim Vanderpool and Tucson Weekly.
Well, South Tucson voters, this shows you what your city government thinks of you.
The 2008 ordinance that you voted into law banning the use of steroids on dogs in South Tucson was endorsed by more than 100 southern Arizona veterinarians.
This shows you the City has done nothing while a veterinarian who claims to be associated with a vet clinic 60+ miles away has openly been dosing the female greyhounds at TGP for a miserable couple of bucks a shot. (Tom Taylor said the shots cost about $2.80 each: Arizona Daily Star 9/15/08.)
Once again, and as always, the greyhounds are on the losing end of this debacle.
Why was it perfectly ok to hormone my female mutt in Germany (by a vet), but when we moved to the States it was not available and now it’s oh-so-cruel? My little mutt was hormoned for 10 years and perfectly healthy until she died of unrelated issues at the age of 16.
Giving female greyhounds steroids cause them issues later in life, a proven FACT.
You present a single data point. Big deal.
People who support racing are evil.
They pay taxes to the city of South Tucson. They pay all of their sales tax. They get a credit on a different kind of tax that does not go to the city.
Don’t post ignorant incorrect information.
Understand bias. Understand the way our system is and they way businesses work within the system. TGP is under the law providing a form of entertainment that has obviously been on the whole wanted by the citizenry. If not, it would have gone out of business. We don’t need to put hundreds of local employees out of work during this time.
Tom Taylor is a good man. He represents a company that a group of people have an issue with, but that does not speak to his personal character.
Employing South Tucson citizens, paying city sales tax, providing entertainment to willing and paying customers, keeping the dogs safe.
We have bigger issues than this.
TGP has “hundreds of employees”? What a laugh!
Tom Taylor is a good man? He stood next to an innocent greyhound while she was killed.
P.S. Their tax credit is GONE this year. Budget cuts you know.
LORD HAVE MERCY! In this day and age that this place of horror still continues to exist is outrageous! Shut it down once and for all and shame on the City of South Tucson for condoning such atrocities…may God have mercy on your souls when the time comes for the heoinous suffering you have turned a blind eye to!
LORD HAVE MERCY! In this day and age that this place of horror still continues to exist is outrageously uncivilized! Shut it down once and for all and shame on the City of South Tucson for condoning such atrocities…may God have mercy on your souls when the time comes for the heinous suffering you have turned a blind eye to!
Have you ever seen how few people actually show up at TGP? Entertainment wanted by the public? I don’t think so. The dogs run SOLELY to permit simulcasting of races of all kinds elsewhere. Three-quarters of their income comes from simulcasting, and it is TOTALLY untaxed profit, unlike in other states.
The out-of-state owners of TGP conveniently forgot to pay partnership/corporate taxes till they were caught, despite being mulitmillionaires.
Why do we subsidize with OUR tax dollars one form of “entertainment” when we don’t subsidize golf courses, water parks for kids, movie theaters and other types of entertainment? Let the free market decide and tax them just like other businesses. They will fold within days once their corporate welfare check is cancelled.
Tom Taylor lied repeatedly to South Tucson City government, to the puiblic and to the media. A good man? Not in my estimation. Of course if you work in the dog cruelty world, lying, flaunting the law and thumbing your nose at the public is just fine.
This Dr. Robinson (and I use the term loosely) also said a puppy had rabies when there were NO CLINICAL SIGNS of rabies and yet had the county euthanize the pup (and of course the report came back rabies negative), so this article doesn’t surprise me about him.
I can see driving around Tucson to avoid a city that allows dog cruelty. Lets close that track.!!
Jesse Chene