Saint Clair officials had ideas of being aggressive toward the number of Pennsylvania Skill machines in the borough. But in the end, they ended up adopting an ordinance regulating them that is more par for the course in Schuylkill County.
Saint Clair will now charge a $500 license fee for any Skill machine operating in the borough. The license is good for one year. Officials say there are 82 machines in operation in Saint Clair, perhaps the most of any municipality in Schuylkill County.
What Saint Clair’s ordinance doesn’t do is what was discussed in the run-up to its passage:
> There will be no restrictions on when Skill machines can be in operation. During May’s Borough Council meeting, an ordinance presented by Solicitor Ed Brennan for members to adopt proposed to shut machines down from 2-7 a.m. every day.
> There are now limited restrictions on how many machines can be in an single establishment. The original ordinance that was up for adoption called for a limit of two machines per 500 square feet of floor space. Council members believed that was too few machines for that amount of space. The only restriction on the number of Skill machines is that a device can’t be within 10 feet of a doorway.
These restrictions were proposed to cut down or eliminate mini casinos from operating in the borough and them never shutting down. During initial discussions of the ordinance several months ago, there was concern expressed that patrons of these machines were bounding from business to business at all hours of the night.
Those restrictions have been scrapped because they don’t necessarily jibe with legislation being proposed among State legislators on Skill machines.
Brennan said he wrote Saint Clair’s ordinance based on what is being proposed at the state level. He reminded council members that whatever may be passed in Harrisburg would supersede what they adopt locally, except for the license fees.
That’s the main thing Saint Clair wanted to get from its Skill game ordinance, revenue. It wanted its piece of the action, as it is. And even that is now rather tame compared to the original discussions and even compared to what some municipalities in Schuylkill County are doing with charging up to $1,000 per license.
First, the Borough will not, at least for now, tax the revenue generated by each Skill machine. The ordinance had originally called for using the borough’s gross receipts tax to generate revenue beyond any license fee.
That has been scrapped, at least initially.
Even the license fee was toned down a bit on concerns that too high of a figure would cause the supplier of these devices to pull them from Saint Clair businesses.
Instead of charging a license fee of $650, as it was written in the draft ordinance, Saint Clair will seek $500 per license.
“I don’t want to see the guys come in and pull out like 30 machines,” Council President Thomas Dempsey said during a rather lengthy debate on the contents of the ordinance as it was written and presented at May’s meeting.
There was some disagreement among council members regarding the fee.
Norm Diehl, who advocated for stricter regulations on Skill machines originally, wanted to keep the license fee at $650.
“I don’t think they’re going to pull the machines over $150,” he said. “It’s $150 times 82 that we’ll get back in the borough.”
Brennan reminded Council members that they could amend the ordinance to change the license fee.
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