Who brings “bingo” to town?
While legislators battled for years over gambling bills, slot machine-style gambling flourished in some Alabama cities. Even when Gov. Bob Riley established his Task Force on Illegal Gambling in late 2008 and then fought Attorney General Troy King for control of it, gambling businesses continued to pop up across the state.
In many cases, lawyers and gambling machine owners approached city council members promising revenue as the cure for the cities’ financial woes. After all, these municipalities are located in counties that have constitutional amendments allowing established local charities to operate bingo. The fact that organizations from other areas — often newly formed “charities” already involved in gambling elsewhere — were the ones approaching council members about gambling should have served as a deterrent. But city officials were assured that the machines were legal despite warnings from the task force, sheriffs and district attorneys who said so-called electronic bingo gambling was nothing more than altered slot machines used to operate for-profit businesses. Most of the constitutional amendments prohibit any entity, including the host city, from profiting from the game.
Still several municipalities opened the door to “bingo.”
Last September, Scott Rogers, director of Hoover-based Community Network Association, approached the town of Kimberly about offering “electronic bingo.” He even hand-delivered his suggested list of new bingo regulations to the Town Council.
According to Mayor Craig Harris, Rogers presented himself as an expert in the “bingo business,” telling council members his organization had opened gambling halls in Fairfield and Walker County.
Rogers told The Alabama Baptist that he also operated a 24-hour gambling facility in Center Point and while his organization had filed bingo permit applications in two or three cities, it hoped to open only one gambling hall in Kimberly.
Plans to open a gambling facility ended after Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls attended a Kimberly council meeting and told the councilors it would violate the state constitution. According to Harris, it was then that the council took the matter “off the table” and sought other methods to raise revenue for the town.
Tarrant and Ashville were approached by so-called bingo lawyers, promoting gambling businesses and claiming to have expertise in the state’s gambling laws.
District Judge John Amari — then a Birmingham-area attorney — approached both cash-strapped cities, saying “electronic bingo” could be played legally. Amari confirmed he has a relative in the machine manufacturing business but said he was not personally involved.
Tarrant Mayor Loxcil Tuck said after Amari introduced the idea to her in early 2009, city Attorney Benjamin Goldman was asked to draft an “electronic bingo” ordinance. City Council members passed the ordinance in September 2009, and Tuck was authorized to issue an electronic bingo license to Community Network Association.
A “bingo” facility did open in Tarrant but only operated a few weeks before being shut down by local authorities.
Ashville Mayor Robert McKay told The Alabama Baptist that “groups of people” approached him about gambling four or five years ago but it was in early November 2008 that Amari approached him and “asked how the bingo was going. … He said we … would be legally able to play (electronic bingo).”
McKay added, “I said the only way I would consider it is that it would be limited and the streets wouldn’t be lined with bingo halls like in Walker County. He (Amari) said that might be obtainable.”
Ashville partnered with Shooting Star Entertainment Group LLC to set up more than 200 machines in a temporary facility while a major hotel/casino was being planned right off I-59. But the temporary facility, as well as the future plans, shut down in about two weeks due to ongoing legal issues and debates.
Amari also approached the town of Argo, located less than 20 miles from Ashville, in late 2008 about allowing a large gambling facility. But when Mayor Paul Jennings and the Town Council began working on a contract for an “electronic bingo” facility, it was with John McLeod, a Mississippi businessman many said had a sordid past and was associated with gambling in Walker County. But before negotiations could be completed, McLeod landed in prison in his home state on drug charges.
McLeod was also one of three gambling industry representatives who approached Andalusia about opening a facility there. The County Commission was interested, but nothing ever happened there.
The town’s plans were also slowed by the Supreme Court issuing a ruling containing the six characteristics of legal bingo, which the type of gambling planned for Argo did not fit.
But it would take more than that to make places like Bessemer change their plans.
When Mayor Edward May repeatedly vetoed the City Council’s “electronic bingo” ordinances, council members hired attorney Kim Davidson to help achieve the goal of legalizing and expanding gambling operations.
Davidson told the council she was “well-versed in bingo” and had been involved with gambling litigation representing a Mobile-based charity suing the city of Birmingham to operate a gambling facility there.
Davidson often advised Bessemer’s council on how to accomplish its goal while also representing organizations hoping to operate casinos in the city. At the same time, she met with state legislators on behalf of both parties, hoping to get a statewide amendment passed to protect and legalize slot-machine type gambling.
When Davidson filed a lawsuit in circuit court to invalidate one of May’s vetoes and direct him to issue bingo permits, he said her actions were not authorized by the full council.
“They (the council’s bingo committee) are acting off the advice of a lawyer (Davidson) who is a proponent of electronic bingo who was not present during the time of the veto,” May told The Alabama Baptist. “I think her opinion is flawed and compromised because I think she is working for other operators of bingo. She is doing what a lawyer is not supposed to do. … I think she is giving an opinion that will generate work and income for her.”
Many other Alabama towns and cities are believed to have entered the gambling arena following similar paths.
Often the parties involved keep their names and plans out of the public view.
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