Hammond council OKs vote on video bingo ban

• By DEBRA LEMOINE
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Sep 18, 2008 - Page: 5B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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HAMMOND — The City Council approved Tuesday night a Nov. 4 citywide election allowing residents to vote on a proposed citywide video bingo ban.

But a state attorney general’s opinion released hours earlier advised that if such a ban is imposed, it might outlaw future parlors only, while failing to shutter existing video bingo halls.

Video bingo has been a controversial issue in Hammond since the City Council enacted ordinances in 2005 that allowed the games to operate in the city. The issue reignited again this year with the approval of a zoning change that allowed for a third parlor to open.

Issues surrounding the third video bingo parlor spurred a voter petition drive to ask the council to repeal its existing ordinances allowing video bingo and adopt a ban on video bingo, which forces the council to either adopt the petitioners’ ordinance or put the issue before the voters under the city’s Home Rule Charter.

The council held a public hearing and voted unanimously Tuesday night to put the petition on the Nov. 4 presidential election ballot.

Four residents spoke to the council Tuesday night urging members to adopt the anti-video bingo ordinance rather than call for the election. Some spoke about the petition drive as a call from city residents to adopt the ban, and others reiterated the moral objections to gambling.

No one spoke in favor of allowing video bingo parlors to continue to operate.

But the opinion issued Tuesday afternoon by the office of Attorney General Buddy Caldwell at the request of the City  Council calls into question the ability of the anti-gambling petitioners to get what they want out of the election.

The opinion notes that the Louisiana Legislature enacted a law this summer outlawing future machines that too closely resemble slot machines, but allows the devices already in use to stay.

The attorney general’s opinion states that any voter-approved ordinance banning video bingo would eliminate only future parlors from opening.

“A repeal of the ordinance would not require the removal of either the video bingo outlets already in place or those for which licenses are applied prior to Aug. 15, 2008,” the opinion says.

Douglas Brown, a Hammond lawyer who is the lead petitioner on the ban, said after the council meeting that the opinion is not the same as a rule from a judge.

“This is a nonbinding opinion of what somebody in Baton Rouge thinks the ordinance might say and what the ordinance might mean,” Brown said.