BY PAT FERRIER
PatFerrier@coloradoan.com

Cloverleaf Kennel Club in Loveland, suffering from dwindling crowds and increased competition from limited stakes casino gambling, shut its doors for good Monday afternoon laying off about 10 workers.

A longtime employee said workers were told about 3:30 p.m. to cash out and be ready to go at 4 p.m.

Cloverleaf Kennel Club announced last year it would not run dogs this year for the first time since 1955 and has instead relied on its bar business and off-track betting on horse and dog races televised via satellite.

The greyhound season runs February to June.

Keli Murray, who managed the bar for eight years, said the board of directors came in and met with general manager John Manning at 3:30 p.m., then sent office personnel around to tell workers to cash out and be ready to leave.

Manning was unavailable for comment Monday night.

Murray said she had about a half-dozen "regulars" at the bar and about 10 others at the facility when it closed Monday.

Daily operations already had been reduced to a single room where bettors monitored races, Manning told the Coloradoan in January.

The facility, sandwiched between the Medical Center of the Rockies and Fort Collins/Loveland Airport, sits on 42 acres of highly desirable and developable land just north of the booming Interstate 25/U.S. 34 interchange.

Loveland-based McWhinney, developers of the 3,000-acre Centerra project that encircles the club, has an option to buy the property in 2012 if owners do not upgrade the property to fit in with its neighbors.

With the club now shut down, it's highly likely McWhinney could exercise its option four years sooner than expected.

Chad McWhinney did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday night.

During its heyday, the club drew crowds in the thousands, filling the glass-enclosed stands visible from I-25.

But business has waned since casinos opened in Blackhawk and Central City, and the state's tax structure made it tough for dog tracks to compete for gaming dollars, board president Harry Hess told the Coloradoan in January.

Hess said at the time that Cloverleaf's future depended on changes to the state's tax structure on pari-mutuel betting.

The present structure imposes a 4.5 percent tax on the gross "handle'' of greyhound tracks in addition to a license fee of $133,400 per month of live racing, according to a state report on Colorado's racing industry.

Casinos pay a lower rate based on their net revenues, making it tough for dog tracks to be competitive, he said.

Four years ago, Cloverleaf invested about $30,000 in upgrades to the facility, including a new exterior and interior paint job, upgrades to the high rollers' club and other minor renovations to the clubhouse to try to draw customers back in.

I hope the beautiful terazzo floor at the main entrance that has the black running greyhound is saved somehow. It is a true work of art in a building that has seen better days.

What does that mean. Your being funny aren't you.

Have you ever seen the floor I am talking about? If I had the money I'd ship it here and enjoy it forever. It belongs at the Greyhound Hall of Fame as a surviving piece of Cloverleaf history.

The rest of the building is horrible and if you've been there you'd agree.

No, never been there. Ok