Saturday, July 17, 1999
Restrictions target illegal bingo
Instant games lose as city cracks down
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — In an effort to stop instant pull-tab bingo operations from operating illegally in Hamilton, city officials have decided to restrict them to industrial zones.
As recently as two years ago, about 30 instant bingo storefronts operated throughout Hamilton. City officials received numerous citizen complaints about many of them.
Instead of benefitting charities, as state law requires, the illegal ones padded the pockets of those operating them.
Police raids on three instant bingo operations last year caused all but four to flee Hamilton. But city officials wanted to take action to discourage them from returning.
“We're trying to target the ones that are illegal and take the community's money,” said Councilman Richard Holzberger, former Butler County sheriff. “They're hurting legitimate charities that benefit from these things.”
City council approved an ordinance this week that requires instant bingo operations to obtain licenses and permits through the city planning department.
The ordinance restricts them to heavy industrial zones, although instant bingo operators can ask the board of zoning appeals to allow them in a light industrial zone.
Todd Boyer, spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, said Hamilton may be the first community in Ohio to enact a law restricting instant bingo operations.
“We'd be interested in looking at it and considering it for new state legislation on instant bingos in the future, he said.
The ordinance, which does not affect the four instant bingo operations now in Hamilton, will take effect in mid-August.
Noella Caprella, executive director of Kitty Comfort Corner, a nonprofit cat shelter that operates a legal instant bingo on High Street, said the ordinance is badly needed.
“Instant bingo games were opening on every corner for a while,” she said. “They were here one day and gone tomorrow. You didn't even know what charity the money was supposed to go to.”
Pull-tag bingo games have become popular. People buy the tickets and then find out if they won any money by pulling off the tabs.
In Ohio, instant bingo is an estimated $600 million industry, Mr. Boyer said. In Kentucky, it generates more than $400 million.
“Instant bingo has been a great concern to the attorney general for several years,” Mr. Boyer said. “We've seen this become a new and largely unregulated form of gambling in Ohio.”
Ohio gambling laws exempt bingo, but require all proceeds not used for expenses to go to a charity that has been established for at least two years. Workers must be volunteers.
Skimming profits from instant bingo has resulted in criminal charges recently in the Tristate. In June, Rabbi Jacob Lustig was ordered to pay $1 million for skimming profits from his synagogue's charitable bingo operation. He and three other defendants were sentenced to probation for defrauding the bingo operation at the Kneseth Israel Congregation in Roselawn.
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