To encourage increased registration, Curran offers financial rewards to bar owners for turning in competitors who run machines that are not licensed. The idea intrigues Dixon, who is personally wary of gambling but is also struggling to close a $65 million budget gap. In a recent editorial board meeting at The Baltimore Sun, she called Curran's bill a "workable" way of raising new revenue.
Asked whether exempting the machines from the amusement tax is an acknowledgment that the devices are used for gaming, the mayor paused for a long time. "We have that in the state," Dixon said. "These facilities have been here. We just haven't gotten our bang." Dixon said later that the legislation needs to be thoroughly vetted by her administration.
Last year, the state comptroller's office began aggressively inspecting bars, looking for illegal gambling via the machines. They searched 13 bars in the city and seized 45 machines. City police participate in such raids, but their focus is on violent offenders, said Anthony J. Guglielmi, a police spokesman.
Curran denies that his bill represents any move toward legalizing gaming in Baltimore, something the city does not have the authority to do.
Discussing the bill over a hamburger in a Baltimore bar, he raised his voice and slammed a hand on the table. "This is an attempt to increase revenue for the city," he said. "It is not an attempt to legalize these at all. It is not even a first step."
But industry representatives are not so sure. Bershtein offered some support for Curran's idea, saying it could streamline the process of collecting funds, but he argued that the proposed license fee is too high and would cause all of the bar owners to get rid of their machines.
Bar owners disagree that the video poker machines could offer a revenue stream, saying that they are out of fashion with young people. "It is a dying game," said Vernon Oliver, the president of the Baltimore Licensed Beverage Association. Should Curran's bill pass, he said that he'd simply remove the machines in his bar and said many of his fellow bar owners would follow suit. "It is not a heated, passionate thing. It is an economic thing," he said.
Should the bill pass, and the city collect more money, some of that revenue should be directed to those with compulsive gambling problems, said Mike Osborne, director of the Harbour Pointe Residential Treatment Program for Gambling.
