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Off-Track Betting Parlor One Step Closer To Reality
By Bill McLaughlin
One more step - and a fairly major step at that - has been taken in bringing an off-track betting parlor to the abandoned Grand Union supermarket on Route 37, Toms River, just over the Manchester border.
As expected, the New Jersey Racing Commission voted 5-0 last Wednesday to approve the application by Freehold Raceway Off-Track LLC to build and operate an off-track betting operation in Toms River.
The vote was taken without discussion by the board. Representatives of the NJRC would not comment on the application.
Three board members - former
chairwoman Noel Love Gross, Tony
Caputo and Dr. Daniel Monaco - abstained from voting.
The approval has been sent to Attorney General Stuart Rasner for review. Within the next week, Rasner must affirm the vote, reject it or table it without comment. Two of the three results would be good for the applicant. Unless Rasner rejects the Racing Commission's deliberations, the applicant will have the needed approval to operate a legal off-track betting parlor.
Officials in Berkeley Township, just yards away from the proposed Toms River facility, are likely to sue the racing commissioners for not allowing the township to air their opposition before the Toms River commission meeting. Township officials have already filed suit against the Toms River Planning Board seeking a formal hearing on the application, citing a lack of formal review of the site plan, a traffic study, a parking capacity figure, and other requirements.
Toms River municipal officials essentially allowed the application to pass by not discussing it formally, letting the legal comment period quietly lapse. The planning board approval also came without formal review of the site plan.
Calls to Hal Handel, the chief executive officer of Greenwood Racing, for comment were not returned as this story went to press. Greenwood is the British gambling operation that owns Philadelphia Park, Atlantic City Racecourse and Freehold Raceway in addition to 14 off-track wagering hubs in Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
If the application goes forward, Toms River will likely be the second betting shop opened in New Jersey. A Vineland application has moved ahead without opposition and likely will open in January. Another site, Woodbridge, is mired in controversy, with town council members split between support and opposition. Unlike Vineland and Toms River, both suburban settings, the Woodbridge OTB is planned for an old downtown supermarket in a congested area near the train station.
The opposition to the application for use of the former Grand Union in a small mall on Route 37 West, at the intersection with Bananier Drive, has come largely from the Holiday City residents who live a stone's throw from the site. The mall sits just yards from the old Central Jersey railroad right of way that serves as the border between Berkeley and Toms River townships.
Berkeley officials continue to maintain the site plan needs to be shown to the surrounding communities who will share the burden of increased traffic at the very least. Another complaint is that no plan for fire exits has been shown and there is no delineation on diagrams where emergency equipment would be stored or whether employees would know what to do in an emergency. The municipal agreements common in high-density use buildings have yet to be worked out for emergency responders.
The one objection that will never subside is the absolute haste with which this application has been processed, and a bold prediction made August 15 at the Toms River Town Hall seems likely to be tested soon.
"We could be ready in 120 days from approval to opening," said Donald Codey, the president of Freehold Raceway, which is the titled leaseholder granted the franchise through the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. NJSEA was empowered through a 1998 vote to operate or lease a dozen OTBs within the state.
The betting parlor will be open from 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends. There will be no charge for admission.
Anyone 18 years of age can be admitted to the OTB and legally wager on the races.
Although there will be liquor served on the premises - Greenwood paid nearly threequarters of a million dollars for the liquor license - no one under age 21 can legally drink alcoholic beverages in New Jersey.
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