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Austintown trustees approve continuing Queen of Hearts drawing at Barry Dyngles
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Township trustees approved the continuation of the Queen of Hearts drawing at Barry Dyngles.
Trustees said Monday that they heard positive things after alterations made to the drawing at the pub, 1601 S. Raccoon Road, that had a smaller crowd for its drawing Sunday night.
That was due to changing the rule that the owner of the ticket pulled need not be present to win 100 percent of the jackpot. That jackpot reached more than $1.23 million Sunday night, and tickets will be sold until the next drawing, 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Due to a smaller crowd than previous weeks, Raccoon Road remained open during Sunday’s drawing.
“It was just a beautiful night,” said Ken Carano, Austintown trustee.
The pub hired 10 off-duty police officers to work the drawing Sunday night, but that could be a lower total next time.
“We didn’t really know what we were going to expect,” said Robert Gavalier, Austintown police chief. “Now, we’re going to look at maybe cutting some of those” off-duty officers hired by Barry Dyngles “back because the crowd isn’t as big.”
Trustee Jim Davis noted that the previous highest jackpot for the Queen of Hearts raffle game had been about $400,000. Barry Dyngles sold nearly 460,000 tickets before Sunday’s drawing.
“Just in one week we have encompassed what the No. 1 drawing was,” Davis said.
Austintown Fire Chief Andy Frost III noted that fire officials were able to get to a fire call in the 4400 block of New Road, near that road’s intersection with Raccoon Road, faster than a normal Sunday night.
There was a report of smoke at that home at 6:39 p.m. Sunday, but fire officials determined that smoke from a neighbor who was open burning in a backyard led to the call.
Fire officials checked the home but did not find any fire.
In other news, Austintown Parks Supervisor Todd Shaffer said two new tennis courts at the township park, 6000 Kirk Road, are nearing completion. The final coat of paint, the top layer, was put on last week and needs to cure. Those two tennis courts were part of an agreement with the Austintown schools to have the schools’ teams use the township courts as its home court.
R.T. Vernal Paving and Excavating Inc. of North Lima was approved for the $149,662 tennis court construction in the township park. The school district is paying the cost to build the courts while the township will pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the courts to be used by the Austintown tennis teams.