The Toronto casino debate is set to reignite, this time focused solely on expanded gaming at Woodbine racetrack, the Star has learned.

Woodbine Entertainment Group, the company that operates the northwest Etobicoke track, has in recent months lobbied Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard), councillors and city officials to reconsider council’s May 2013 vote.

Back then, councillors approved by 24-20 a ban on expanding gambling at Woodbine beyond racing and its 3,000 slot machines. The rejection of table games happened during a tense meeting that saw the more controversial, high-profile bid to host a downtown casino resort shot down 40-4.

With Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. now setting the stage to choose an operator of expanded gambling in the GTA, and other municipalities interested in hosting, it is “critical” that Toronto council lift the restrictions, said Woodbine president Nick Eaves.

“It is vitally important to the future of the Woodbine racetrack business model and the approximately 7,500 jobs that Woodbine is responsible for” at the track and beyond, Eaves said in an interview.

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“We think the way the issue was approached back in the spring 2013 was very much about the unpopular prospect of a casino downtown, and the Woodbine question didn’t get considered fully on its own merits.”

Tory is open to rekindling the debate, said his communications director, Amanda Galbraith, but only if it involves an “entertainment destination” with hotel, restaurant and other amenities that would bring more jobs to economically depressed Rexdale than a stand-alone “box casino.”

“We’re in preliminary discussions with Woodbine,” Galbraith said. “In our view, to look at expanded gambling, that has to be in concert with a much bigger vision that would drive economic development.”

Eaves sent Tory a letter Monday that makes the case for expanded gaming on the large site, which has hosted OLG-run slots since 2000, and emphasizes an expansion’s critical importance to Woodbine’s mandate to grow Ontario’s horse breeding and racing industry.

Tory’s staff, however, are asking Eaves, who leaves his post March 31, to suggest possibilities beyond a casino before Tory considers putting the issue to his executive committee, a precursor to a debate and vote at council.

Asked what Woodbine is proposing, Eaves said his company is “the land owner” and it would be up to the city, OLG and Woodbine to articulate a vision. “But that’s not for now,” he added. “For now the process is to create an environment where the city is supportive of looking at the options.”

Sarah Doucette (open Sarah Doucette's policard), the Ward 13 Parkdale-High Park councillor who opposed the Woodbine prohibition in 2013, could still support a casino there.

“The slots have been there for years and nobody’s heard ‘boo’ and I am concerned about the possibility of losing jobs at the race track,” she said. “I don’t see Woodbine at all as being like a downtown location.”

Vince Crisanti, one of Tory’s deputy mayors and the councillor for Ward 1 Etobicoke North, was tasked by the mayor to find economic development opportunities for the city’s job-starved northwest corner. He is leading the Woodbine file for Tory.

Woodbine is actually in Ward 2 Etobicoke North, represented by Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's policard) who as mayor led the unsuccessful charge for downtown and Woodbine casinos after the failure of Woodbine Live!, a shopping and entertainment complex proposed for the site by a Baltimore-based developer.

The city’s lobbyist registry shows that Woodbine hired prominent lobbying firm Sutherland & Associates, headed by former city councillor Paul Sutherland, which has had a flurry of meetings with city hall decision-makers.

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That includes a Feb. 23 gathering of Tory, his principal secretary Vic Gupta and senior adviser Chris Phibbs, Eaves, Woodbine vice-president Bill Ford and Sutherland, the registry indicates.

OLG says that, as part of its “modernization” process, it will only consider expanded or new gaming facilities in municipalities that consent.

Correction – March 11, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to Woodbine Entertainment Group as a not-for-profit company.

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