By DANIELLE GALVIN
THE Pakenham Sports Club ’Lions Den’ will operate as a sign-in, sign-out venue with a strong focus on members when the new venue is built in Officer.
The $15 million state-of-the-art facility will be built on Bridge Road by the Pakenham Racing Club which will signal the last poker machines on council property in the shire.
The proposal includes plans to relocate 60 poker machines from the Cardinia Club and the Pakenham Sports Club to be used in the new Officer venue.
Racing club CEO Michael Hodge said for the time being it would still be known as the Pakenham Sports Club.
Cardinia Shire Councillor Tania Baxter put forward an alternative motion at the town planning meeting on Monday night to remove the “additional opportunity” for the racing club to increase the number of poker machines at the Cardinia Club in the next five years.
She said she appreciated that the club had undertaken community consultation and been open in their plans for the Officer venue, but had failed to tell residents about the plans for seven extra machines.
“These seven extra machines were just as much of a surprise to me as they would be to the community, this is the ultimate deal breaker for me,” Cr Baxter said.
Opening hours for the new club will be 8am-3am every day. Plans include a large bistro with a deck, café and terrace, children’s play centre, sports lounge, gaming lounge and function room.
Cr Baxter said in an ideal world, the venue would close well before 3am, but she was concerned that the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) would recommend the club be allowed to close at this time.
Patrons will be allowed to drink in the outdoor area until 10pm in line with the concerns from nearby residents about noise.
Cr Baxter said the club will be a “sign-in, sign-out” sort of a venue, a first for the shire.
She said while she accepted the growth in Pakenham, she could not support the seven extra poker machines.
But Cr George Blenkhorn disagreed with the sentiment and said the application for seven pokies for the Cardinia Club to replace the machines taken for the new sports club was in line with the population growth.
He said the numbers of poker machines in the shire was less than the state average and in 2011-2012, the losses of gaming in the shire were over $21 million.
“That is a huge amount of loss in this community – and not one cent came from me,” he said.
Cr Blenkhorn said that the gaming room was well away from the rest of the venue.
Cr Kate Lempriere also objected to the amendment and said that expecting patrons not to drink in the outdoor area after 10pm was “totally unreasonable” and an idea thought up by “dreamers.”
“How they police that is not for council to decide,” she said.
“We know that if they go to VCAT, they will get the 3am close (for the outdoor area), so to not allow it and waste ratepayers’ money when the racing club goes to VCAT, is beyond me.”
Cr Collin Ross said the gaming part of the Officer club was not “in your face” and had to be sought out.
He said it would be very different to Crown, where patrons walk through the area with the pokies to get to certain parts of the entertainment complex.
Cr Jodie Owen said former Cardinia police inspector Chris Major supported the move and added it was not a “nanny state” and that pokies were legal.
“With this venue, it is a choice and not in your face,” she said.
The amended motion was carried with the majority support of councillors. Plans for poker machines at Cardinia Park Hotel in Beaconsfield is expected to come before councillors in the next two months.
Earlier this year, the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation approved 40 of the machines at the hotel.
