Centre Wellington Township will soon be dealing with a zoning amendment that would allow the Grand River Agricultural Society to increase the number of slot machines at the raceway at the southwest end of the village.
Raceway General Manager Dr. Ted Clarke said in an interview Monday, “What it amounts to is we have a cap of 200” slot machines. “We have space on the floor where more machines could be added.”
He estimated about 20 more machines in total, and remembers well the controversy of eight years ago.
“I expect there will be lots of questions asked along the way,” he said. “It’s a zoning request. They [council] will deal with it as that.”
The Agricultural Society, as the property owner, made the application. Zone changes require public meetings.
The original slots facility was approved amidst much controversy, but Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said in an interview on Monday she does not expect anything like what erupted at the start of the century, when the issue was approval of slots at a raceway.
“This is a business that is expanding on its own footprint,” Ross-Zuj said. “They have an enviable record of conducting a respectable business. To go over what we had before [opposition to the slots] is not on the table.”
Centre Wellington council faced the largest public meeting in Wellington County history when it heard the pros and cons of hosting a slots facility and racetrack. The issue went to the Ontario Municipal Board and then through two levels of court appeals before it received final approval.
Citizens who opposed the facility at the judicial level were levied court costs that ran into the thousands of dollars.
Since then, many opponents of the facility have been involved with groups that have obtained Trillium Foundation grants. The Trillium Foundation uses the profits from slots facilities and casinos to benefit local organizations across the province.
And Ross-Zuj noted that none of the negatives that were touted by opponents ever came to pass.
“These people have become excellent corporate citizens,” she said of the Agricultural Society.
When asked if there have ever been complaints registered with the township, the mayor said, “Absolutely none.”
The raceway has opened its doors to hosting events by service clubs, and the Agricultural Society has been a top donor in the community.
It supplied the money for teaching students about water usage through the Public Works department (about $10,000 a year), and it recently donated $125,000 to help refurbish Bissell Park.
Ross-Zuj said the Agricultural Society has assessed the operation and determined that it can include more slot machines. She noted, too, that while the application is for more machines, it is not for a larger number of people to be inside the facility at any one time.
That limit will not change, and there is no application to expand the building’s size.
As for the opponents of the slots, Ross-Zuj said, “That battle is over. Gaming is approved in Ontario at that site. I would hope common sense would prevail here.”
The township’s share of the slots revenue – about $1.8-million per year for a total of about $8-million since the facility opened in December of 2003 – is being used by council to fund infrastructure projects.
The township has been using its 5% share of the profits in grant programs, often where one-third of a project is paid by the province, and another third by the federal government.
That leverages the township dollars three to one, and Ross-Zuj said with the reserve from the slots, she can argue the township’s cause for more infrastructure money because provincial officials know the work will not force an increase in municipal taxes to cover the township’s share.
