Randy Griffith
rgriffith@tribdem.com
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Leaders of the moribund Geistown Country Club are asking Richland Township supervisors to help give the 75-year-old organization a new life as a catering and banquet club in University Park Plaza off Scalp Avenue.
Supervisors conducted a public hearing Monday on a request to transfer the club’s liquor license from Geistown Borough to allow it to move into the rear section of The Corral and Pony Lounge.
The club will sublease 8,000 square feet of the 18,000-square-foot facility that once housed Penn National Off-Track Betting and its predecessor, Ladbrokes. Most of it will be used as a banquet facility for private parties.
There will be a small lounge and bar for members, club President William Frombach told supervisors.
The club has applied to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to change its license to a catering club license and relocate to Richland Township.
“We have been noted for our food for years,” Frombach said. “I just thought we’d try that.”
Frombach owned the club’s former location at 330 Teaberry Lane in Geistown Borough, but said he sold it to the Johnstown Elks Lodge two years ago because it had fallen into disrepair and the club did not have funds to renovate. Members have pressed him to find a new location.
After investigating several other possibilities, he learned that The Corral owner Rick McQuaide was interested in subleasing a portion of the facility.
“Everything is done inside the building, except building a wall to separate the two places,” Frombach said, noting that state law prohibits direct access between a public tavern and a private club.
Several members of the Richland Board of Supervisors raised concerns about adding a second alcohol-related establishment so close to the Pony Lounge. Richland police Sgt. Mike Burgan said Richland officers routinely post themselves outside the Pony Lounge for about an hour before closing time on weekends. Police help McQuaide’s employees clear out the parking lot quickly after the bar closes.
“Security outside is one of our main concerns,” Burgan said. “We are worried about two parking lots.”
Interaction between the two groups of patrons and expanded patronage could create more issues, Burgan said. In the past year, Burgan said, police have responded to 14 calls to fights, eight disturbances, 11 offenses and 50 intoxicated persons at the Pony Lounge and parking lots.
“Are we exacerbating a potentially bad situation?” Richland Supervisor Robert Heffelfinger Jr. said.
McQuaide, Frombach and the club’s attorney, Richard J. Russell, stressed that the Geistown Country Club entrance will be at the rear of the building, facing Route 219, while the Pony Lounge door is on the front, hundreds of feet around the building.
But the club could potentially remain open an hour after the Pony Lounge is required to close, township Solicitor Gary Costlow pointed out.
The club has no plans to remain open late on a regular basis, member Eugene Kain said, stressing the club caters to an older demographic than the Pony Lounge’s crowd.
“Obviously 90 percent of the people in (the Pony Lounge) would not be members,” Kain said.
Kain and Frombach pledged to continue the club’s practice of hiring trained security staff to patrol the parking lots, while McQuaide lauded his staff’s ability to keep control inside the lounge.
New members must be approved by two existing members and are subject to criminal background checks, Frombach said, noting that only members are permitted to buy alcohol in the club.
It was noted that criminal incidents at both establishments have made news in the past.
Eddie Wanamaker Jr. was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2007 to voluntary manslaughter in the April 2006 stabbing death of Southmont resident Edwin C. Rice on the Geistown club’s dance floor.
Last month, Pony Lounge bouncer Charles A.B. Johnson, 34, was arrested for beating a man in the parking lot.
“We could not have picked a worse time to come before this board,” Russell admitted.
Timing was of the essence, however, because the Geistown club’s license has been in “safe keeping” since the former building closed in 2008. The two-year limit expires today, Russell said, asking supervisors to approve a resolution permitting the license move.
But Supervisor Wayne Langerholc Jr. balked at taking any votes because Tuesday’s hearing was not advertised as a business meeting for supervisors. Costlow concurred, advising supervisors to delay any vote until Monday’s regular meeting.
Langerholc assured club leaders the proposed resolution will be on the meeting agenda.
Russell said he will resubmit the club’s application today and ask the state for a little more time, although he noted the PLCB does not usually grant extensions to the “safe keeping” status for club licenses.
