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Allow outdoor evening racino concerts, county urges
YOUNGSTOWN
An assistant Mahoning County prosecutor is asking a judge to uphold an Austintown Zoning Board of Appeals decision that would allow outdoor summer evening concerts to occur at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
“The BZA’s actions were neither arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion,” wrote Donald A. Duda, assistant prosecutor, in a brief he filed Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Duda was responding to a lawsuit filed against the board last year by Ashley Facility Realty LLC, which operates Briarfield at Ashley Circle, a facility offering nursing home and skilled rehabilitation services at 5291 Ashley Circle, which is adjacent to the racino.
When he filed the lawsuit last August on behalf of Ashley, Atty. Peter B. Grinstein said Ashley has no objection to indoor concerts, but that outdoor concert noise would disrupt the nursing-home environment.
“Their residents are generally elderly, and many are recovering from recent surgery,” Grinstein wrote in a brief he filed earlier this year.
“A restful environment promotes health and healing,” he wrote.
“The noise from the proposed outdoor concerts will negatively impact that restful environment,” he added.
Bob Tenenbaum, a spokesman for Penn National Gaming, which owns Hollywood Gaming, said Penn National has no plans for amplified outdoor concerts this summer at the Austintown racino.
However, he said Penn National asked permission for such events because its business plan calls for the possibility of eventually offering such concerts.
The racino featured an unamplified live bluegrass band concert on an outdoor patio facing the horse racetrack from noon to 5 p.m. May 2 in conjunction with the Kentucky Derby. Tenenbaum said he was unaware of any noise complaints from that event.
“It was definitely not a full-blown concert,” Grinstein said of the May 2 event.
The zoning board granted a conditional-use permit last year that allows a seasonal 1,500-seat outdoor concert area in a racino parking lot, with portable seating and a portable stage, and no more than eight concerts annually.
The permit limits concerts to 6 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 to 8 p.m. Sundays.
The lawsuit says the five-member zoning board abused its discretion when it unanimously granted the concert permit to the racino, which opened last Sept. 17 at state Route 46 and Silica Road.
However, Duda wrote: “The evidence and testimony presented by Hollywood demonstrated that the concert stage [and its accompanying speakers] would face north” toward Interstate 80 and not south toward Ashley.
Duda was referring to testimony given during the zoning board’s hearing on the matter last summer.
Duda also cited testimony from Hollywood’s general manager, Michael Galle, that the summer concerts would occur when full foliage on the trees “helps mitigate any sound.”
However, Grinstein said Monday: “That didn’t satisfy my client. ... We don’t buy that.”
The case is assigned to Judge Shirley J. Christian.
The racino has an outdoor horse-racing track and an indoor casino.