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Police check out gambling machines
Friday, March 14, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN
Jay Szewczyk, left, a parent and volunteer at Little Flower School, sits in the Brass Rail with owner Charles B. Gatton and Hilda Gatton as a law officer surveys them about electronic gaming devices at the bar in Great Mills.
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St. Mary’s Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron (R) said that morning that, armed with a new opinion this week from the attorney general’s office, some of the machines are illegal, and all must be operated strictly by nonprofit organizations. The sheriff said the opinion may also prompt another look at the legality of local Texas hold ’em card tournaments.
A roundup of gambling machines will not take place, the sheriff said, until the information collected is reviewed, and a place is found to store them.
‘‘I don’t have one, and the state police do not have one,” the sheriff said at a press briefing at his headquarters. ‘‘I have an obligation to safeguard that evidence. I can’t line them up in the hall. They won’t fit.”
The sheriff’s most recent tally on the number of electronic gambling machines in the county stood Thursday at 334, less than the 387 tally released last week and far below the total of 1,000 floated during initial press inquiries about the matter.
The opinion this week by an assistant attorney general ‘‘gives us greater clarity of the law. It fills some gaps to questions that we had before,” Cameron said. ‘‘It’s quite clear that there are a number of illegal devices here, [and] ... it goes far beyond the types of devices. If it’s in a bar or a restaurant, it’s illegal.”
Court officials reported no requests at press time for an injunction to block the sheriff’s plan to eventually seize any illegally designed or used machines, if they’re not trucked out of the county by their owners, but officials at a liquor store with the machines and the company that provided them said they’re talking with their lawyers.
‘‘I have shut down the equipment today,” Marcelo Costa, a general manager with Impact Games, said Wednesday of the 105 machines his company has in St. Mary’s. ‘‘The charities agreed that until further clarification, we’re going to suspend the fundraising activity.”
Fifty-five of Impact’s machines, generating funds for 11 nonprofit groups, are located at Fred’s Liquors in Charlotte Hall, and the store’s vice president Paula Sorrells said Wednesday that the proprietors believe their arrangement is still within the law.
‘‘We did all of our homework before we put these in there. I wish everybody would stop trying to jump the gun on it,” Sorrells said. ‘‘We look forward to the visit [by police on Thursday]. We welcome that visit.”
Other locations on the sheriff’s list of places to visit on Thursday included Back Road Inn in Compton, Big Dogs Paradise in Mechanicsville, Boatman’s Minimart in Mechanicsville, Brass Rail in Great Mills, Buffalo Wings and Beer in Leonardtown, Cadillac Jacks in Lexington Park, Dew Drop Inn in Hollywood, Fitzie’s Marina and Pub in Leonardtown, Friendly Tavern in Great Mills, Hill’s Store in Helen, International Beverage in Lexington Park, Petruzzi’s Italian Bistro in California, Sandgates Inn in Mechanicsville, Seabreeze Restaurant in Mechanicsville, St. James Pub in Lexington Park, St. Mary’s Landing in Charlotte Hall and Coles Point Tavern — a St. Mary’s business built on pilings over the Potomac River along the Virginia shoreline.
‘‘It’s about a two-hour drive over to [Coles Point in] Virginia,” Cameron said. ‘‘If we don’t get there today, we’ll go there tomorrow. I’m not willing to chance that boat ride.”
Nonprofit charitable organizations also on the list, to have the machines on their own premises checked, include the American Legion post in Ridge, Elks Lodge in California, Patuxent Moose Lodge in Hollywood and the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in California. Also on the list was ADF Bingo, a Mechanicsville business that the sheriff said is rented by nonprofit groups under a law going back to 1968.
The sheriff reiterated his hope that businesses with illegal machines or not authorized to have them will remove them on their own.
‘‘One place did say they would be gone in days,” the sheriff said. ‘‘I got a number of calls from some of the establishments ... [that] said, ‘Our desire is to get them out of here.’ That would not upset me at all if they packed up and left.”
The surveys given to officers carrying out Thursday’s visits included questions about the number of machines at each location, the vendor supplying them, names of benefiting charities, procedures for dispersing the machines’ proceeds and the name, type, model, listed beneficiary and any identifying number on each machine.
The investigation at each location eventually will let the proprietors know if they’re in compliance with the law, sheriff’s Sgt. Steven Hall said, and ‘‘if they’re not, to cease and desist.”
Cameron acknowledged that authorities from Baltimore County familiar with the different types of machines ultimately were not able to attend Thursday’s rounds.
‘‘They have the technical expertise to look inside the device,” Cameron said. ‘‘They weren’t able to come.”
Sorrells said her liquor store complies with requirements that nonprofit groups operate the machines. ‘‘We sit on the committees of some of these charities,” she said. ‘‘We are members of some of these charities.”
Cameron responded Thursday, ‘‘You can’t be both. If you receive payment from the business, you can’t be part of the qualifying nonprofit organization.”
The state comptroller’s office was represented at Thursday’s enforcement operation by spokesperson Warren Hansen, who said the agency is still looking for the state legislature to specifically ban the machines.
The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee voted Wednesday to pass a bill doing that onto the full chamber. Debate on the floor was scheduled for Thursday.
‘‘We think these are copycat slot machines,” Hansen said. ‘‘Because they’re cash only, there’s ripe opportunity for corruption, and revenue that’s not given to the state that’s owed.”
Costa, the Impact Games manager living in Howard County, said that this week’s opinion from the attorney general’s office did nothing to affect the machines his company provides. Although their videos of spinning icons and sounds are ‘‘mimicking the experience” of playing a slot machine, he said, the end result is no different than a manual pull-tab dispenser.
‘‘All of these are presets. The pull-tabs in the box cannot be shuffled. It’s a finite game,” Costa said. ‘‘The pull tab comes out prior to the representation on the monitor. If you turn off the monitor, it will still dispense a pull tab.”
At the sheriff’s office, Cameron said the attorney general’s office opinion details the differences between ‘‘Tab 2” machines in Calvert County approved by an appeals court and newer ‘‘Tab 3” machines, and declares illegal any machines that are equipped with a cartridge that prints tickets and are networked to a computer.
Costa said no one has the older machines, in either county.
‘‘You can’t find the Lucky Tab 2s anywhere in Maryland,” he said, noting the manufacturers’ increasing technology that moves ‘‘closer to the slots experience” without being a slot machine. ‘‘They don’t stand still,” he said. ‘‘This industry moves forward.”
Although he does not have a timetable for the roundup of the machines deemed illegal in design or use, the sheriff said it will occur. ‘‘The businesses shouldn’t assume it’s going to take days or weeks,” Cameron said.
The Texas hold ’em card games could be subject to future inquiries if nonprofit groups don’t receive all of the revenues. ‘‘If there’s a division of funds,” the sheriff said, ‘‘it’s not legal gambling.”
