County health inspectors toured stablehand living quarters at Santa Anita Park, instructing race track officials on the repairs and upgrades necessary to make the "backstretch" habitable.
Santa Anita Park plans to make at least half of approximately 600 equipment rooms and dormitory rooms available as living quarters for its back-stretch workers.
Ed Inouye of West Covina, whose family was sent to the internment camp at Santa Anita Park during World War II, died on February 19th. He was instrumental in getting the government to pay reparations to some of the imprisoned families.
Caruso Affiliated, the builder of The Grove, proposes building a $400 million mixed housing and retail complex in the parking lot of Santa Anita Park. The project would include a few hundred apartments and condominiums.
Santa Anita Park race track requested that the City Council delay acting on legislation that would govern its nighttime operations. Public hearings will be held so that the track's stance can be explained to neighboring homeowners.
Labor officials conducted surprise sweeps Wednesday and Thursday at four California tracks, including Santa Anita Park, looking for violations of overtime and minimum wage laws amongst the backstretch workers.
With the winter-spring racing season less than three weeks old, Santa Anita Park has laid off parimutuel and other workers, and track owner Frank Stonach is being publically chastised for his leadership style.
Months of talks between Westfield Shopping Town Santa Anita and Santa Anita Park race track about building a shopping center seem to have fallen through.
Santa Anita Park officials blamed February's rain for a 12.8 percent drop in average daily attendance at Santa Anita Park, but were heartened because the total money bet on and off track soared to a record of more than $1 billion.