Cracked Claw

Good old Peter Pan still hasn't grown up.Remember Peter Pan? For kids who grew up in the Baltimore, Washington and Frederick areas, Peter Pan-the-restaurant was nearly as memorable as Peter Pan-the-literary-classic. (The book, the Mary Martin version or the Disney cartoon, take your pick.) This was the definitive special occasion dinner place. The old country house with its scrolly New Orleans ironwork, fountains and statuary was delightfully wacky and decadent -- not a bit like our suburban homes.

— A mostly gray-haired crowd of gamblers scans dozens of TV sets and places bets on horse races broadcast from tracks around the country at the Cracked Claw restaurant in this Frederick County community. One longtime patron, Chris Kovin, said he comes because he prefers to hoist a beer and socialize while watching the races, rather than placing online bets from home. But, he acknowledges, the Cracked Claw "has definitely seen better days. " The state's four remaining off-track betting facilities are struggling along with the declining horse-racing industry, itself hobbled over the years by the sport's waning popularity and by competition for gambling dollars from nearby slot-machine parlors and casinos.

Allan Levey, a member of the Maryland Racing Commission, said the board will meet Tuesday evening in Baltimore to vote whether to grant the Cracked Claw restaurant in Urbana an off-track betting license.Levey chaired a meeting in Frederick on Wednesday night and heard "mostly opposition" from a number of county residents about the location of the proposed parlor.Levey also said that three of the county commissioners and two state legislators from the jurisdiction also have voiced opposition to the Cracked Claw site.

A story in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported price increases for several categories of tickets for next year's Preakness. The Sun regrets the error. Here are the correct prices:Seat location .......1996 .......1997Infield advance .....$17 .........$20Inf. Preakness day ..$20 .........$25Sports Pal. reserve .$145 ..... .$150Grand. upper reserve $55 ....... .$60Grand. upper box ....$120 .......$130Grand. lower box ....$130 .......$150Grand. concourse ....$40 .........$45The Maryland Racing Commission renewed the licenses of the state's five off-track betting parlors for 1998 yesterday, but attached an amendment that means the sites could be inspected by commission members every three months.

John "Pappy" Poole is the state's first off-track betting winner.His 16-month battle to open Maryland's first OTB parlor culminated in victory when the Maryland Racing Commission approved the operation via a telephone vote yesterday.Poole, owner of the Cracked Claw restaurant in Urbana, said: "If we can get enough equipment in here, we hope to be hooked up and running Friday. We finally got it done."Sales counters are already in place at the site.The parlor will open a half-hour before post time at the originating Maryland track and carry all the action that is offered at Pimlico, Laurel and Rosecroft, including simulcasts.

URBANA -- Is this small rural village in Frederick County about to become Sin City, U.S.A.?Yesterday members of the Maryland Racing Commission were confronted by some extremely vocal opponents, including a weeping mother, two ministers and a couple of distraught fathers, who said opening an off-track betting parlor in Urbana would bring traffic problems, increased crime and moral turpitude to their community.The specter of local high school students becoming compulsive gamblers, having their bets run by teen-age bookies, gun battles in the parking lot if robberies occur and waitresses at the facility providing "sexual titillation" was raised by angry members of the local PTA and a group that has been formed called "Families Against Off-Track Betting."

FREDERICK -- A network of off-track betting parlors, long envisioned by Maryland's racing industry, is closer to reality.By a 6-1 vote yesterday, the Frederick County Planning Commission approved a site plan for the first proposed outlet at the Cracked Claw Restaurant near Urbana.Tom Lattanzi, OTB project director for Laurel-Pimlico, said five other facilities have gained zoning and liquor board approval in their local jurisdictions and are considered likely sites.They are the Ramada Inn Convention Center in Hagerstown; the Seahorses Restaurant in Solomons, Calvert County; Chesapeake Rod n' Reel Club in Chesapeake Beach, Calvert County; the Shoals Restaurant in Cambridge, Dorchester County; and the Westminster Inn in Westminster.

URBANA -- At the Cracked Claw restaurant south of Frederick, nobody has to wait very long for the next post time.Amid a dizzying blur of horseflesh and cash, gamblers at this off-track betting parlor scan banks of television screens, looking for the right wagers on some of the 200-plus races beamed daily from tracks around the country.While the heart of Maryland racing still beats along the rail at Laurel and in the Pimlico infield on Preakness day, off-track betting at distant locations such as the Cracked Claw has developed in its first three years into an important part of the state's gambling industry.

The Maryland Racing Commission is holding not one, but two, public hearings in Frederick County today to listen to public comment concerning the proposed opening of the state's first off-track betting outlet at the Cracked Claw restaurant in Urbana.The first hearing is at the restaurant at 10 a.m. "But a number of people wrote or called their county delegate [Tom Hattery-D, Frederick] and said they couldn't make it at that time," said commission chairman John H. "Jack" Mosner Jr. "So, in order to accommodate everyone and to make sure that all their feelings and concerns are heard, we will hold another meeting later in the day which will be chaired by [commission member]

Michael's Riviera GrillMichael's Riviera Grill, The Brookshire Hotel, 120 E. Lombard St., 547-8986. It takes superb food to top the view from this restaurant, many stories up and a block north of the Inner Harbor. And that is exactly what we enjoyed there -- high-quality food, carefully prepared. No, beautifully prepared. The presentation was terrific; the flavors true and exciting. Even the bread was homemade. The menu is called Mediterranean, offering a sampling of French, Italian and Spanish specialties and some that defy classification.

URBANA -- At the Cracked Claw restaurant south of Frederick, nobody has to wait very long for the next post time.Amid a dizzying blur of horseflesh and cash, gamblers at this off-track betting parlor scan banks of television screens, looking for the right wagers on some of the 200-plus races beamed daily from tracks around the country.While the heart of Maryland racing still beats along the rail at Laurel and in the Pimlico infield on Preakness day, off-track betting at distant locations such as the Cracked Claw has developed in its first three years into an important part of the state's gambling industry.

A pile of big crabs sat on the backyard table. I tried to convince myself I could quickly separate meat from shell, and present my family with a couple of pounds of hand-picked crab meat.Crabs put on weight in the fall, and these were so meaty that my family had not been able to polish them off the night before when they arrived, hot and steaming from a Baltimore crab house. Not wanting such prized meat to go to waste, I had put the leftover crabs in the refrigerator and promised I was going to pick them clean.

The much-publicized demise of the Charles Town, W.Va., racetrack lasted less than three months.Management of the half-mile oval, about 90 minutes west of Baltimore, announced yesterday that it plans to offer an expanded multi-card simulcasting program six days a week starting Feb. 24 and will resume live racing on March 10.The track held its last live races Dec. 11 and closed in late December for simulcasting, purportedly because it was losing too much...

Community groups who had opposed the opening of the state's first off-track betting parlor in Urbana earlier this year were absent yesterday when the Maryland Racing Commission renewed the parlor's license for 1994 at the board's monthly meeting."

Even though Maryland's newest off-track betting parlor in Cambridge is lagging far behind the state's other two outlets in Frederick and Elkton, owner-operator Charlene Burton said yesterday that she's "not down on the system yet."Burton said that the operation at her restaurant-motel complex called The Shoals, which is handling about a fifth of the money that goes though the mutuel machines at the Cracked Claw facility near Frederick, "is making ends meet and has increased food and beverage sales [at her bar-restaurant]

The Maryland Racing Commission has approved the requested dates of all the state's tracks for 1994 and will ratify them at its next meeting Dec. 13.All that is required to finalize the schedule is a hearing regarding Rosecroft Raceway's desire to operate live racing for 260 nights, an increase of 22 from this year.No opposition is expected to surface to the harness track's request, and the hearing will probably be a formality.It can be held at any time next year up to the date of the 238th racing day that Rosecroft used in 1993, according to Ken Schertle, the commission's executive secretary.

Even though Maryland's newest off-track betting parlor in Cambridge is lagging far behind the state's other two outlets in Frederick and Elkton, owner-operator Charlene Burton said yesterday that she's "not down on the system yet."Burton said that the operation at her restaurant-motel complex called The Shoals, which is handling about a fifth of the money that goes though the mutuel machines at the Cracked Claw facility near Frederick, "is making ends meet and has increased food and beverage sales [at her bar-restaurant]

Laurel/Pimlico track operators reached a tentative agreement yesterday to send their signal into two new proposed off-track betting parlors in Cambridge on the Eastern Shore and a Colonial Beach, Va., restaurant, which is actually in Southern Maryland.Cambridge is in line to be home to the state's third OTB parlor, followed by the Riverboat on the Potomac restaurant, which has a Virginia address, but is built on pilings in the Maryland waters of Charles County.State harness officials signed a contract selling the Standardbred signal to Greg and Charlene Burton, owners of the Shoals Restaurant and Quality Inn in Cambridge, a couple of weeks ago.The Burtons have submitted an application for licensing approval to the Maryland Racing Commission.

Poor Jimmy's is now becoming Rich Jimmy's for the state's harness racing industry.But followers of flat racing have not been overly impressed with daily off-track betting figures from the Cecil County restaurant.And for good reason.On many days the harness horses are outhandling the thoroughbreds.For example, last Friday about $31,000 was bet on flat horses at Poor Jimmy's. The night before $41,500 was bet on standardbreds.The reason?"It's the old Brandywine [Pa.] Raceway crowd," said Ted Snell, president of Rosecroft/Delmarva.