Enforcement ban for Alcoholic Beverage Control gets veto

[TexasTowelie]

Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would bar Alcoholic Beverage Control and its enforcement division from enforcing laws relating to gaming devices or gambling devices under state law.

Senate Bill 496 by Sen. Scott Flippo, R-Mountain Home, cleared the 35-member chamber in a 24-5 vote on March 15 and the 100-member state House in a 53-22 vote on March 28.

Flippo told senators last month that his bill is aimed at helping places such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Elks Clubs, that it wouldn't expand gambling and would, instead, make local law enforcement officers and prosecutors responsible for enforcing state laws relating to gambling devices.

But Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, who voted against the bill, said the state's problems with gambling devices go beyond such establishments.

Read more: http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/apr/05/enforcement-ban-gets-veto-20170405/?f=news-politics

[brewens]

1. I don't know if it still goes on, but when I was an Eagles Lodge member and trustee, our

video slots kept the doors open. At least that was what we told ourselves. Once we got those going, illegally of course, we made about $500 a week profit.

It works like this. The machines say "for amusement only" on them. When someone racks up enough credits, usually hitting a jackpot, they call the bartender over to clear the machine. The bartender notes the credits and the next day there in an envelope behind the bar for the winner. That way no law enforcement can ever see a payoff. That's great for a club like that, we know everyone and know for sure most times that we don't have a cop in there. Easy enough for many of the smaller bars to pull off too.

Those Arkansas bar owners are just hoping the yokel cops will look the other way. We were on our local state legislators to push bills allowing gaming for all bars. In some ways it was race based. Many hated it that the local tribe could do it legally and make big bucks and we couldn't. I kept telling them to limit the bill to only private clubs like we had. A couple members were bar owners and did not appreciate that from me. I liked it the way it was. It was way safer for us than any of the public bars and we were doing just fine. I knew we had many members just because they could come down there and gamble. Let every "Schmoe" that owned a bar do it legally, and we'd lose a lot of that.

Plus I had no problem with our local tribe owning the road on the gambling. Probably every one of us voted for that in the 80's. They finally had money coming in and were really doing good things with it. If you allow gambling everywhere it dilutes the effect and becomes a total drain. No one would ever get enough of the action to really gain anything.