The borough of Pine Valley in Camden County has already voted to consolidate into Pine Hill. The disappearing town has 21 residents – barely one for each hole on the main course at Pine Valley Golf Club, one of the top golf courses in the world and the borough’s reason for existing.
Like Tavistock – 8 miles to the north, population 9 – Pine Hill exists because locals long ago convinced the Legislature to de-annex it from a larger municipality so the golf club could do its thing.
“In those cases, the municipalities that they were originally associated with were dry. They didn’t want any alcohol,” said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers University. “But you can’t really have a golf course without a bar.”