North Cook News

Village of Schaumburg Trustee Marge Connelly is not opposed to video gambling coming to the area, but she’s adamant that it happen in what she believes to be the right way.

“I voted No on the proposal as it stands, but I support video gambling coming to Schaumburg for restaurants and hotels that are in competition with neighboring communities,” Connelly told the North Cook News. “We are surrounded by areas that had to get video gambling and we hear from owners that in lean times it makes a difference when it comes to staying in business.” 

Even without Connelly’s vote, Schaumburg trustees recently voted to recommend replacing the village's ban on video gambling with far lesser regulations. The new rules could become official when village members reconvene to take a final vote on a measure that could formally take effect on Jan. 1.

Village of Schaumburg Trustee Marge Connelly | http://www.villageofschaumburg.com/

Connelly said her hesitation revolves around language in the bill that would allow so-called gambling cafes where the machines would be the primary source of business.

“Many of those have only about 10 menu items and I believe are not set up as restaurants but gambling establishments,” Connelly said. “I believe those are predatory for people looking for inexpensive places to gamble but may not have the resources to do so.”

Connelly said she would rather see something occur like what happened in Mt. Prospect, where they have a spattering of gambling machines in some restaurants but no gambling cafes.

According to the Daily Herald, the Schaumburg plan proposes regulations that would allow existing hotels and restaurants with liquor licenses to have up to six machines after Jan. 1. New cafes would have to be 1,500 feet from any other gambling license holder and be a minimum of 2,500 square feet in size. 

Plans also call for the village to allocate up to half of its $500 annual fee per machine for the treatment of gambling addiction among residents and place all revenues collected from the fees in an arts and entertainment fund.

“We’ll have other discussions and I don’t believe this will be an up and down vote,” Connelly said. “The positive I see from this is hopefully it will increase businesses for our restaurants. We want businesses to be successful and I think some of them will benefit from this.”