The Village of Barrington has a survey on its Web site, asking residents to vote on whether they are for or against legalizing video gambling.

Lake, DuPage and Cook counties and several municipalities have passed ordinances against Gov. Pat Quinn’s efforts to pay for public works projects through video gambling. The state’s approval of the law in July allowed a caveat for municipalities to opt-out, and ban video gambling in their communities.

“Relatively, a small number of individuals have taken the survey yet,” said Barrington Village Manager Jeff Lawler. “I would say in a couple of weeks we should have a better opinion as to the residents’ opinion in regard to video gambling. The board will take that as advice and take that further. Then the board would discuss that at a later date. We should know more by the end of the month.”
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Outlawed in unincorporated areas

Lake County board member Stevenson Mountsier, (R-17) of Barrington voted for the ban in unincorporated areas at an Oct. 13 meeting, adding the state’s track record is poor in returning pooled revenues to county projects.

“We are not going to get that money back,” Mountsier said.

Bob Cozza, manager at Penny Road Pub in unincorporated South Barrington, which is part of unincorporated Cook County where video gambling was also outlawed, said he and the pub staff were all for video gambling.

“Of course we would be for it,” Cozza said. “It would’ve been a huge money maker.”

Click here to fill out Barrington’s survey on video gambling.


—By Amy Alderman, Triblocal.com reporter