PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A convenience store owner is suing the city in Common Pleas Court to stop City Council’s effort to ban so-called skill games in corner stores.
Councilmember Curtis Jones says he wasn’t surprised that the industry that makes and distributes the machines sued the city almost as soon as the bill passed earlier this month, but he plans to move forward.
“We figured on the chess board that was their next move,” said Jones.
“I’m still going to meet with Revenue, with L&I. I’m going to meet with the city solicitor to see what the next steps are.”
The bill is still awaiting Mayor Cherelle Parker’s signature. Her office says she hasn’t made a decision on whether to sign, but Jones says she knows the concerns the machines raise.
“She has stated in the past the problem of these gambling bandit machines in neighborhoods," Jones said.
The games resemble arcade video games but can pay out like slot machines. And they are completely unregulated, so they can go anywhere. Gov. Josh Shapiro has recently proposed regulating and taxing them.
Jones says he’d be happy if the state stepped in: “This also was designed to move them. Since 2017, this has been a problem. How long do we have to wait? How long do communities have to suffer?”
Jones says the games are a magnet for crime and a threat to people with gambling addiction, and they create a hostile atmosphere in vulnerable neighborhoods.
Attorney Matt Haverstick says some machines in some places may do that. But, he says, his client, Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, which is behind the lawsuit, operates legally and helps small store owners stay in business.
“There’s no causal relationship between these games and crime,” Haverstick says.
He says, rather, the games keep small stores afloat. The named plaintiff in the suit is a 7-11 owner.
If Parker signs the bill, he says it would take effect immediately, and he’d start working with the administration on enforcement, giving store owners some lead time to remove the machines.
But Haverstick says, if the mayor signs the bill, it will actually hurt the city.
“The perverse effect of the ordinance is that law-abiding manufacturers like Pace-O-Matic are going to take the games out of Philadelphia, depriving those businesses of necessary income, and you’re going to be left with illegal games that don’t care about the ordinance and will stay where they are and therefore doesn’t do anything to correct the nuisance locations that people really are concerned about.”
Pace-O-Matic was behind a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s state law banning the machines. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled the state had acted legally and the games went dark late last year. But the state legislature passed a new bill reviving the machines. The governor hasn’t signed it yet.