One-armed bandits anger councilmen

Alexandru Tanase, leader of the City Council’s Liberal-Democratic group, says the entrepreneurs involved in the gambling business ignore the ban on placing slot machines in residential areas and near bus stops, violating at the same time the 9 PM curfew at outdoor gambling facilities. Councilman Tanase said he strongly disagrees with the opinion spread by some media outlets that the ban on slot machines interferes with business freedom. He also criticised media for spreading the erroneous information that the Communist councillors voted against the ban, reminding that the decision was adopted unanimously by the City Council on 27 December 2007. Tanase says that ever since the regulation on gambling activities was adopted, he has been threatened and harassed. “I was told a couple of times to remember that I have children. But it was for my children’s sake as well as in the interest of the society that I backed this regulation”. Tanase stated he would not yield to pressure and urged his colleagues to join the cause. The mentioned that there are rumours in Chisinau about a 500,000 lei fund being collected by the owners of slot machines in a move to find supporters among the councilmen and law enforcers in order to lift the ban. Valeri Klimenko, councilmen of Ravnopravie (Equity) Movement, stated that even if he is against gambling, the ban was wrong, at least because cigarettes and alcohol are also tempting for some teenagers, but nobody banned them. Klimenko thinks that the ban on gambling machines will eventually kill this business in the city, which is not fair to those who invested huge sums in it. In addition, he considers, the city budget will miss about 10 million lei in revenue each year because of this.