Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting will likely try to put a video casino in Belmont Park, but it won’t happen if Floral Park residents and officials have any say in the matter.
The Village Board adopted a resolution Tuesday opposing the installation of video lottery terminals, or VLTs, at the Elmont race track on the village border, saying it would have “very significant, serious and long-term effects” on quality of life.
“We must come together, as we have in the past, as one unified voice to say no,” Trustee Kevin Fitzgerald said.
While Nassau OTB has not officially said it wants to install a small-scale VLT parlor at Belmont, news reports and conversations with lawmakers have indicated it’s the most likely location, Mayor Thomas Tweedy said.
Joining a list of opponents including the Floral Park-Bellerose school board and Elmont community leaders, Floral Park officials, civic leaders and other residents say the parlor would drastically increase traffic around Belmont, strain village services and attract criminal activity.
“This Belmont VLT proposal will be an open wound in this village for perpetuity,” said Dennis McHenry, a member of the village’s task force that monitors the development of Belmont Park.
A study led by Floral Park Police Commissioner Steven McAllister found the communities around comparable casinos don’t see the benefits they’re promised.
Statistics show they’re linked to more crime and lower property values, McAllister said. The Belmont VLT parlor could also double the number of car accidents nearby, he said, enlarging the burden on the village’s police force.
“I would take my children to go see a horse race. They’re not even allowed in the casino,” McAllister said. “That’s a real stark contrast.”
The village has stood against casino gambling at Belmont Park since 2007, when it created its Belmont Park Task Force after then-state Sen. Dean Skelos first proposed a VLT parlor there. The committee was recently reconstituted and is set to meet later this week, Tweedy said.
Floral Park also helped halt a 2011 casino proposal from the Shinnecock Native American tribe, and the village was the only Long Island community to vote against a 2013 state constitutional amendment to expand casino gambling, Tweedy said.
The Belmont VLT parlor could face hurdles under zoning and state tax laws, Tweedy said, and the village has retained Manhattan law firm Beveridge & Diamond to help fight the project in court if necessary.
VLT proponents, including Republican county legislators and County Executive Edward Mangano, have said they would capture revenue the county greatly needs in a difficult financial time.
Mangano included $20 million in VLT revenue in his 2016 county budget and said Nassau OTB would name a location this month, but the agency hasn’t yet made an announcement.
To those in Floral Park, though, the potential financial benefit doesn’t outweigh the other costs.
“That money can’t come from foisting upon the community that which it does not want,” Tweedy said in an interview.
The Village Board has sent letters to local elected officials asking them to do what they can to stop a casino, and it urged residents to do the same, given the Legislature’s influence over Nassau OTB.
“I really want my fellow residents to understand that this is a political issue, and we have to let those that are in office right now know that we’re not going to accept this plan,” said Ralph Ratto, a Floral Park resident and head of the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Teachers’ Association.
