Baltimore county police crack down on 10 locations for illegal gambling

[Spot72]

"With the support of the U.S. attorney and Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations, police "took action against all Internet cafes that we knew of where illegal gambling was taking place," spokeswoman Elise Armacost said. She confirmed that computer terminals were included in evidence taken out of all 10 businesses in an operation that involved 90 to 100 officers starting Wednesday morning.

The county crackdown at locations in the Towson, Woodlawn, White Marsh, Essex and North Point areas comes about a month after city police sent letters to game rooms telling them the operations are illegal and had to be shut down by Sept. 30. City police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police have checked to make sure the machines were not being played, but they had not seized the computer terminals at several locations in the city."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...0,713966.story

[yeah]

good. illegal is illegal

[atomic]

"Terry Land, who owns Hot Spot Sweepstakes, said he just paid $50,000 to cover the county amusement device license fee for six months for all 100 machines"

I am sure the big casinos in the state had something to do with this. They can't have competition. And they have the entire goverment under their thumbs.

[demopublican]

good. illegal is illegal

In Baltimore City one of the City Council members owns them in his bar.

What a difference a few miles makes

[ybnormal]

Counties, city and state governments get very upset when money changes hands and they don't get their slice <read: taxes>. Amazing how they can crack down on internet cafes but it's business as usual for those participating in illegal dog fighting, the underpinning of the recent pit bull issue.

[Spot72]

Counties, city and state governments get very upset when money changes hands and they don't get their slice <read: taxes>.

Expected

[buzzthefuzz]

What's ICE doing in that investigation. They have become the pawn in the presidents game of pandering. Read the latest news in CA on the invasion of the drug cartels.

You get what you vote for.

[demopublican]

In Baltimore City one of the City Council members owns them in his bar.

What a difference a few miles makes

http://www2.citypaper.com/eat/story.asp?id=14006

Did Good Times ever get raided?

EDWARD REISINGER AND HIS FAMILY own a tiny little bar in Morrell Park called Good Times, where amusement devices line the narrow walls. Reisinger, a Democrat, is the 10th District city councilman and chairs the Land Use and Transportation Committee, which in April recommended expanding the presence of such regulated devices in neighborhood businesses like his. The machines are known to be used for illegal gambling, yet the Baltimore Licensed Beverage Association, which represents bars and other liquor establishments, requested the bill, and its supporters have donated heavily to Reisinger's re-election campaign. The measure still awaits a full City Council vote.

Let's recap: A bar-owning councilman's committee touts a law backed by his campaign donors to expand opportunities for illegal gambling at bars. That is some old-school politics, but Reisinger comes from the old school. His father was a South Baltimore state delegate during the midcentury apex of the Stonewall Democratic Club's since-waned power, when the late state senators George W. Della Sr. (father of today's 46th District state senator) and Harry J. "Soft Shoes" McGuirk ran the show south of the Inner Harbor ("Bossin' Around," June 29, 1979, reprinted Aug. 1, 2007). Reisinger himself showed his Morrell Park colors three summers ago, when he got into a scrap with a convicted drug dealer who assaulted him after Reisinger stepped out of Good Times and confronted the guy for throwing trash in the street. "The system took a drug dealer off the streets of Morrell Park, and that's what I wanted," Reisinger told the judge after his attacker got six months in jail ("Street Violence," Mobtown Beat, Oct. 13, 2004).

[buzzthefuzz]

good. illegal is illegal

Are you talking about the stores and bars or the government.

[Eastside Terp]

expect even more raids on bars with poker machines and other "amusement only" games now that they are in direct competition with the state's gambling operation .......

like growing up on the east side watching the vice cops protecting the citizens by raiding the neighborhood bookies that took "numbers" ........

within a couple of years the state was trying to put them out of business by running the same game ......

funny thing is, like the greedy, money grubbing entity it is, the state cut the payout odds to rip off levels so the folks (and the economy) were better off with the bookie on the street ......

[demopublican]

The failure rate for new bars and restaurants is astounding.

Who do you think lends money to cover food and alcohol?
The vendors can't extend generous terms to all these guys.
But the vending industry would. Put in a couple of machines and your cash flow improves. Legal? Nope. But they have all done it for decades. It will be interesting to see how the corner neighborhood bar survives without them.