Upper Leacock, Pa. township rejects Rutter’s video gambling machine proposal due to zoning regulations.
A proposal for video gambling machines at a Rutter’s convenience store was rejected by Upper Leacock, a township in east central Lancaster County, Pa.
According to LancasterOnline, video gaming terminals were legalized at qualifying “truck stop establishments” under a gambling expansion law known as Act 42 and signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf late last year.
The local Rutter’s is registered as a convenience store and automobile station, not a truck stop.
In a letter to a lawyer representing the Rutter’s chain, township zoning officer Mark Deimler said that the gaming machines “are not a use customarily incidental and subordinate to a convenience store.”
Deimler said that the zoning ordinance does not permit truck stops in the commercial zone where the Rutter’s is located.
Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board spokesman Richard McGarvey told LancasterOnline that the gaming law regarding the machines “would not supersede local zoning.”
Rutter’s has appealed Deimler’s decision to the township’s zoning hearing board.
The Upper Leacock Zoning Hearing Board will review the appeal on April 3.