thestarpress.com
The statewide crackdown on video gambling continues in East Central Indiana, with Indiana Excise Police seizures of cash and internal game controls.
Over the weekend, excise officers raided Big Johns, a bar at 402 W. Eighth St., seizing cash and game-controlling "motherboards" from video gambling machines, said Vanessa Hinson, the bar's owner.
Hinson said she was buying the bar on contract from Vicky Massey, owner of Muncie Coin, a leading supplier of Cherry Master and other video gambling machines.
Massey is the daughter of John Neal, the former Teamsters Local 135 president who served time in prison on federal gambling charges.
Hinson said she believed the raids were hurting tavern owners.
Lou Coulter, local tavern owner and official of the local chapter of the Indiana Licensed Beverage Association, said state officials have turned down suggestions that the machines be legalized and their revenue taxed.
"Tavern owners are all concerned," Coulter said. "Here we are trying to make them legal and get rid of the gray area machines and make the state money and they won't listen to us."
Supt. Alex Huskey - who noted that legalization of video gaming was "a legislative issue" - said the number of complaints about video gambling machines "are increasing."
"A lot of people are e-mailing our help line and saying, 'I know of this place ...'" Huskey said.
Huskey also said that tavern owners are turning in other businesses.
The crackdowns are occurring not on a daily basis, Huskey said, but "fairly regularly in different areas."
Reports indicated the Lamplighter Tavern in Anderson had also been raided recently, and Huskey said the Plymouth Club in Marion had been raided.
The presence of the machines sometimes draws enforcement action from state agencies. For example, the Indiana Department of Revenue polices machines in licensed bingo parlors.
After unsuccessful attempts to legalize and tax the machines - which tavern owners say generate $1 billion a year - state officials in recent weeks have begun a crackdown.
One of Coulter's bars, the End Zone, was one of the first to be raided.
The statewide crackdown on video gambling continues in East Central Indiana, with Indiana Excise Police seizures of cash and internal game controls.
Over the weekend, excise officers raided Big Johns, a bar at 402 W. Eighth St., seizing cash and game-controlling "motherboards" from video gambling machines, said Vanessa Hinson, the bar's owner.
Hinson said she was buying the bar on contract from Vicky Massey, owner of Muncie Coin, a leading supplier of Cherry Master and other video gambling machines.
Massey is the daughter of John Neal, the former Teamsters Local 135 president who served time in prison on federal gambling charges.
Hinson said she believed the raids were hurting tavern owners.
Lou Coulter, local tavern owner and official of the local chapter of the Indiana Licensed Beverage Association, said state officials have turned down suggestions that the machines be legalized and their revenue taxed.
"Tavern owners are all concerned," Coulter said. "Here we are trying to make them legal and get rid of the gray area machines and make the state money and they won't listen to us."
Supt. Alex Huskey - who noted that legalization of video gaming was "a legislative issue" - said the number of complaints about video gambling machines "are increasing."
"A lot of people are e-mailing our help line and saying, 'I know of this place ...'" Huskey said.
Huskey also said that tavern owners are turning in other businesses.
The crackdowns are occurring not on a daily basis, Huskey said, but "fairly regularly in different areas."
Reports indicated the Lamplighter Tavern in Anderson had also been raided recently, and Huskey said the Plymouth Club in Marion had been raided.
The presence of the machines sometimes draws enforcement action from state agencies. For example, the Indiana Department of Revenue polices machines in licensed bingo parlors.
After unsuccessful attempts to legalize and tax the machines - which tavern owners say generate $1 billion a year - state officials in recent weeks have begun a crackdown.
One of Coulter's bars, the End Zone, was one of the first to be raided.
