Buffalo Grove delays talks on OTB proposal
The Buffalo Grove Plan Commission is postponing talks on a proposal to move an off-track betting facility into the Village Bar & Grill, the restaurant at the village-owned Buffalo Grove Golf Course.
Village Manager Dane Bragg said the matter was delayed at the request of the petitioner, Hawthorne Race Course, which wants to relocate its OTB from 301 N. Milwaukee Ave. to the village’s municipal campus.
The plan commission now is scheduled to take up the petition at its March 7 meeting. Bragg said the village board could hear the matter as soon as April 2.
“I think they (Hawthorne) were just verifying some additional information,” Bragg said. “They didn’t really give us a specific reason (for the delay).”
Hawthorne is looking to move the OTB because the operation on Milwaukee Avenue has been faltering since the restaurant that housed it, Adam’s Roadhouse, fell into receivership last year.
The proposal is moving on two tracks. One is getting the matter moved through the plan commission, while the other is working out a lease agreement between the village and Hawthorne. Bragg said the village expects to meet with Hawthorne about the lease next week.
Opponents of the Milwaukee Avenue OTB, approved 2010, already are voicing concerns about the new plan. Among them is village resident Susan Glazer, who worries about the betting facility’s impact on the nearby St. Mary Parish church and school, as well as on the youth programs that use the area’s baseball and football fields.
She noted that the Buffalo Grove Recreation Association and the Buffalo Grove Bills youth football association are frequent customers at the golf course restaurant.
When contacted Monday, the pastor of St. Mary Parish, the Rev. Marc Reszel, said the parish does not have an official position on the OTB.