Business Owners Wait and Watch on Gambling Addiction Clinic

Maria Parlapiano has been mentoring women about the beginning stages of motherhood for twenty-four years. Four years ago, she moved her business to a house on 55 Main St., a large, cream-colored Victorian with green shutters and a white porch, surrounded on all sides by shrubs and large bushes. A sign on the front lawn pictures a baby swathed in a blanket and says: "Postpartum Place: Where Mothers Matter Most."

Fifty yards to the west of Parlapiano's practice sits the Parrot Mill Inn, a cozy-looking colonial from the 18th century. Parlapiano used to be an "overnight lactation consultant" at the Inn, where she would stay in a room across the hall from new parents and their child to give them support and advice throughout their stay. The New York Times wrote about the inn and Parlapiano in January 2008.

Two years later, things are about to change. Toby Kennedy, who runs the inn, has decided to lease it to Michael Osborne, a specialist in gambling addiction who was once an addict himself. Osborne plans to turn the inn into New Jersey's 11th gambling addiction rehabilitation center, a move that's left many residents in Chatham angry and fearful about its possible effects on the community.

The reaction from residents worries Parlapiano. Fifteen to 20 mothers come and go from Parlapiano's business per day. Some, crying babies in hand, come looking for advice on how to breastfeed, while others attend mom support groups and classes.

"I'm concerned because I deal in a delicate situation with people who just delivered," she says.

Parlapiano is warm and attentive and keeps saying that personally, she has nothing against helping gambling addicts. It's just, well, she doesn't know what her clients will think.

"I'm concerned if my clients are going to perceive it as a problem," she says. "From a business standpoint, I'm not thrilled."

Unlike Parlapiano, Nancy Laird, who has owned Restaurant Serenade for thirteen years, doesn't think the rehab center will hurt business.

"I can't imagine it affecting us or the town in any way," she says. "People need to go somewhere for help."

Plus, she says, "it's more interesting than a bed and breakfast."

Joanne Love, who owns Cambridge Street Papers, shares her sentiment. Sitting at a glass and wooden desk among two Martha Stewart invitation sample books, as large as a complete edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Love seems genuinely baffled that people are concerned about the rehab center.

"I don't have a problem with it because I can't think of a good reason why it would pose a problem," she says. "It's not in the middle of a residential area. It's in a business district."

Love is matter-of-fact, with straight, shoulder-length blond hair and tortoise shell glasses. "I can't see what some of the issues [would be]," she says.

At Postpartum Place, Parlapiano gets up from a flowered couch, moves to her crowded desk and starts imagining all of the issues Love cannot. A Christmas tree crookedly stands on a lamp table, oddly not out of place between two richly upholstered armchairs and the picture windows behind it.

"I'm [concerned about] encounters with police, maybe robbery, drugs, alcohol," she says while stamping envelopes. "I don't know how closely they watch these people. If I knew how these places are run, then I'd feel different."

Like many business owners on Main Street, Parlapiano didn't find out about the clinic until after the borough Planning Board approved Osborne's application earlier in the month.

"We needed to be more involved and we were completely closed out," Parlapiano says.

On Monday, residents intent on having a say in the matter appealed the zoning decision that will allow Osborne to open his clinic.

Although the clinic doesn't concern Laird, she believes residents have a right to appeal the decision.

"Residents [should] be able to voice their opinion in terms of what they want in their neighborhood," Laird says. "I would hope that's the case."

Love is blunt about when the borough government should take action, though.

"[Residents] should have a say, should be alerted," she says. "But if [Osborne is] within his boundaries, short of being a pedophile, he should be able to [open the clinic]."

Parlapiano doesn't necessarily want to stop the clinic from opening. She just wants to know that the mothers who visit her store so many times a day will feel safe.

"If they can prove that it's safe, then it's safe," she says. "I can reassure clients that it's fine here. But I can't reassure them about something I don't know."