Hello. My Name Is Jeff Topper and I Am the President of the New Oxford Social and Athletic Club
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Hello. My name is Jeff Topper and I am the President of the New Oxford Social and Athletic Club. This other gentleman is Cork Livelsberger, our Club manager. We are a private social club located in the small town of New Oxford (pop. 1,784) in Adams County. We are here today to support House Bill 1313. The way the current Small Games of Chance Law is written and applied is not an equitable law for the private clubs across the Commonwealth. The larger clubs are held to the same gaming earnings limits as the much smaller clubs. Currently, our club has 3200 members with another 800 people on our waiting list. There are also several other clubs of our size, or larger, in our area. Comparatively, your average VFW, Am Vets, and other smaller clubs average about 300 to 400 members. Yet, all the private clubs in Pennsylvania are held to the same gaming limits. Why should the larger clubs be held to the same maximum earning limits as clubs one tenth their size? Obviously, with so many more members, we have the potential to make a lot more money for our community, grow our club and hire more people. And what do we do with that money? We give 60 per cent away (as required by The Small Games Act) and try to operate our business on the other 40 per cent. We don't mind giving a required percentage of our gambling earnings to our local charitable organizations. Actually, without us giving money to many of the organizations in our area, they would have a hard time operating, if even able to operate at all. In the past few years, we have given away close to one and a half million dollars to the local community and schools. You have been provided with a copy of all of the organizations we have contributed to in the last few years. With your permission, I'd like to highlight a few of them: We are the sponsors of the local Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops; we support the H.A.R.T. Center, which is the local workplace for the mentally and physically handicapped; Olivia's House, which is a place for children to grieve when suffering the loss of a loved one; we finance the local New Oxford food bank and Meals on Wheels; we're a large contributor to the local Make-A-Wish Foundation; and we sponsor five (5) $5,000 scholarships to each of three local high schools. If we were not limited, as we are now by The Small Games of Chance Act, to how much we could make from our gaming income, we could expand our business and increase our contributions to local organizations. Currently, we employ 62 people at our club. With the opportunity sell more gaming (at $1.00 per chance), we could expand our business, hire more workers, and increase our contributions to the local organizations that rely on us for support. If we had no limits, I know that we could easily double, if not triple, our weekly gaming contributions to our community and local charities. Our club is the place to belong in our small town, as evidenced by the three to four year long waiting list. Daily, we have 500 to 700 people pass through our doors. On the weekends, you better get there early for dinner because we fill up quickly. Good food at a reasonable price, drinks, and a chance to play the strip tickets or punch boards. It's the place to be in New Oxford. This is where families and friends come together to spend the evening. This is a huge difference between a club and a restaurant. We want our families and friends to come together here to spend the evening. This holds the bonds of friendship and families and community. A restaurant needs to turn the tables over as quickly as possible to maximize sales. I would argue that for this reason, clubs are an important part of a community. While we like the way House Bill 1313 is written now, with the idea of each club paying for a licensing fee based on what they would like their gambling limit to be, it still limits us to a ceiling as to how much we can sell each week. We feel that it would be more profitable for the state to tax each gaming device purchased by a club. The system of gaming device distributors is already in place. They already are state approved providers of gaming tickets. Every club in the state has to go to one of these distributors to buy their gaming tickets, which gets reported to the state by the distributor. Just collect a flat tax on each game purchased. The distributor could collect it at the time of purchase and send the tax collected to the state with the reference numbers of the games purchased by each club. That way, the more games of chance a club would sell would result in more income for the club and the state and the charities. Plus, the state wouldn't have to monitor how much each club is paying out on a weekly basis. They would only have to monitor that the clubs are selling only state approved games of chance. We know that there is no perfect solution to the way that gambling in the private clubs across the state is regulated. We would just like the opportunity to sell as much as our community will support. With the opportunity to sell more, we feel that we could possibly increase our business, thus creating more jobs in the community and increase our monetary contributions to the local charities and organizations. Thank you for your time in addressing this issue. 5:52PM New Oxford Social & Athletic Club 02/19/15 Profit & Loss Detail Accrual Basis Type Num Name Amount Ordinary Income/Expense Expense Donation Check 1164 4-H Clubs of Adams County, Inc. 1,000.00 Check 1349 4-H Clubs of Adams County, Inc. 500.00 Check 1607 4-H Clubs of Adams County, Inc. 500.00 Check 1668 4-H Clubs of Adams County, Inc. 500.00 Check 1185 A.C.V.E.S.A. 50,000.00 Check 1699 Abbottstown/East Berlin Food Pantry 2,500.00 Check 1260 ADAMS-HANOVER COUNSELING SERVICES.INC. 1,500.00 Check 1553 ADAMS-HANOVER COUNSELING SERVICES.INC. 1,500.00 Check 1347 Adams County Arts Council 500.00 Check 1546 Adams County Arts Council 500.00 Check 1230 Adams County Sheriffs Office 3,500.00 Check 1177 Adams County SPCA 5,000.00 Check 1427 Adams County SPCA 5,000.00 Check 1693 Adams County SPCA 500.00 Check 1480 Adams Rescue Mission 2,500.00 Check 1608 Adams Rescue Mission 1,500.00 Check 1691 Adams Rescue Mission 1,500.00 Check 1739 Adams Rescue Mission 2,500.00 Check 1545 AMERICAL LEGION RIDERS POST 14 2,500.00 Check 1203 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 100.00 Check 1297 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 500.00 Check 1298 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 500.00 Check 1299 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 500.00 Check 1501 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 500.00 Check 1520 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 1.000.00 Check 1592 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 500.00 Check 1742 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 100.00 Check 1176 American Red Cross 2,000.00 Check 1447 American Red Cross 2,000.00 Check 1722 American Red Cross 1,000.00 Check 1596 AMVETS POST #22 290.00 Check 1337 Angels Of Hope 1,500.00 Check 1415 Angels Of Hope 1,500.00 Check 1631 Angels Of Hope 1,500.00 Check 1512 ANNUNCIATION B.V.M. CHURCH 500.00 Check 1425 ANNUNCIATION B.V.M. SCHOOL 1,000.00 Check 1609 ANNUNCIATION B.V.M. SCHOOL 1,500.00 Check 1647 ANNUNCIATION B.V.M. SCHOOL 200.00 Check 1268 Athletics for Better Education, Inc. 500.00 Check 1513 Athletics for Better Education, Inc. 1,500.00 Check 1412 B.S.Y.A.A 1,500.00 Check 1679 B. S. Y.AA. 1,500.00 Check 1561 BANKERT TROPHIES 238.34 Check 1644 Bermudian Sports Club 1,000.00 Check 1182 Bermudian Springs Class of 2013 2,500.00 Check 1376 Bermudian Springs Class of 2017 250.00 Page1 5:52PM New Oxford Social & Athletic Club 02/19/16 Profit & Loss Detail Accrual Basis Type --Num Name Amount Check 1711 Bermudian Springs Class of 2017 500.00 Check 1181 Bermudian Springs H.S. Athletic Dept. 2,500.00 Check 1402 BERMUDIAN SPRINGS SCHOOL DISTRICT 25,000.00 Check 1428 BERMUDIAN SPRINGS SCHOOL DISTRICT 1,500.00 Check 1490 BERMUDIAN SPRINGS SCHOOL DISTRICT 500.00 Check 1448 Borough of New Oxford 5,000.00 Check 1180 Boy Scout Troop 105 2,500.00 Check 1172 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 2,500.00 Check 1212 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 400.00 Check 1262 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 1,000.00 Check 1280 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 250.00 Check 1293 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 300.00 Check 1505 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 1,500.00 Check 1558 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 1,500.00 Check 1580 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 1,500.00 Check 1640 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 2,500.00 Check 1656 BOY SCOUT TROOP 125 3,000.00 Check 1720 BOY SCOUT TROOP 127 1,000.00 Check 1649 BrandiStambaugh/Ripple Effect 1,000.00 Check 1511 BRIDGES GOLF COURSE 150.00 Check 1188 C.V.S.D. DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS 15,000.00 Check 1419 CAMP CAR.E.S.