DARIEN, IL – Former Darien Alderman Tom Chlystek told Downers Grove officials last week that he regretted his vote to allow video gambling in Darien.

Chlystek, who served as an alderman for eight years, urged the Downers Grove Village Board to oppose such gambling, which he said hurt Darien’s reputation.

Chlystek spoke at the same meeting as video gambling supporter Robert Taft, owner of Q Bars in Darien, Downers Grove and Aurora. Hours later, Taft sent Chlystek vulgar emails, for which Taft later apologized.

They were among dozens of residents speaking about video gambling, with the Downers Grove board yet to decide on the issue.

In his comments, Chlystek told Downers Grove officials that Darien approved gambling at first for a couple of businesses.

But then the Darien City Council expanded gambling, with the intention of avoiding the charge of picking winners and losers, Chlystek said.

As a result, more businesses approached the city with “sob stories” and aldermen would feel bad for them, he said.

“Where we screwed up in Darien is by allowing gaming. We sort of changed the ecosystem,” said Chlystek, who moved to Downers Grove after losing his bid for re-election in April. “This year, we had a Smoke Bank come in. Why? Because if you game, that’s the same demographic that is more likely to drink. It’s the same demographic that is likely to buy tobacco.”

He continued, “So for me as a new resident here, it’s not the business owner. It’s not the revenue. It’s how are you going to change your town, and you can’t control it. Trust me. We tried controlling it. We just couldn’t.”

He named a few businesses, including Q Bar, that are near Darien’s gateways that have video gambling.

“Eventually, some of us were embarrassed being in Darien, that we allowed this to come in, just for a couple of bucks,” Chlystek said.

Darien’s response

In response to Chlystek’s comments, City Administrator Bryon Vana and Joseph Marchese released a statement to Patch on Wednesday. They said video gambling has had no negative impact on the city. They said allowing video gambling was a way to keep Darien competitive with other towns that allow such an activity.

“It was disappointing to hear the disparaging remarks Tom made about the City of Darien,” the officials said. “We don’t recall ever hearing Tom talk about video gaming issues. Staff looked back at the goal-setting survey Tom completed in November of 2022, and he never made mention of concerns related to video gaming. During Tom’s negative comments about Darien, he provided no factual or statistical basis for his comments about video gaming.”

They disagreed with Chlystek’s assertion that the city “lost control” of gambling when, in fact, they said the ordinance has maintained tight control of the activity. They said a number of new restaurants have come in seeking liquor licenses without requesting gambling.

“The truth is Tom was not even on the city council when the gaming ordinance was approved in 2013,” they said. “Tom also inaccurately commented that video gaming started with two locations and then spread from there.”

Instead, the officials said when the gambling ordinance was approved, any retail establishment pouring, mixing or otherwise serving liquor on premises was eligible to have video gambling.

“In all our years of public service we have never seen a council member talk highly of a community, lose an aldermanic election, and then talk so negatively about the community he used to live in,” the mayor and city administrator said. “You would have to talk with Tom about the motivation for his comments and his inaccurate comments.”

A gambling advocate’s case

Taft, who spoke earlier in the meeting, said Downers Grove residents had waited two years for a decision from the village.

All six of the board’s commissioners, he said, supported video gambling in their campaigns. He said it was their job to vote in line with the positions they took before voters decided.

He described two commissioners as being the strongest no votes. Both of them, he said, claimed the overwhelming majority of residents oppose video gambling.

At the same time, Taft said, those same commissioners voted against the will of the unanimous local opposition to a recent zoning request.

“They are at best disingenuous or more likely hypocritical as they have ignored the public’s opinion in the past,” Taft said.

After state and local gambling taxes, Darien’s Q Bar made nearly $440,000 from gambling in 2022.

Darien has 11 video gambling establishments. In 2022, Darien received $308,891 in video gambling taxes, including $33,107 from Q Bar.