The Odessa City Council Tuesday evening voted 5-1 to approve amendments to its game room ordinance and unanimously voted to purchase 15 new police vehicles.
The council has been working for months on amending its game room ordinance due to an explosion in the number of game rooms over the last couple of years.
Council members believe game rooms bring an unwanted element into neighborhoods and take money from the poor and elderly. Authorities also suspect some are engaged in illegal gambling.
On Tuesday night, the newly amended ordinance was read publicly for the second time, as required by law, and the council approved it. The new rules will take effect in 30 days and impact all future game rooms within the city limits of Odessa.
Current game rooms will continue to operate under the existing ordinance unless their permit is revoked or lapses.
New game rooms will only be able to operate from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 8 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. They won’t be able to operate more than 50 machines, they can’t be within 1,500 feet of each other or daycares, schools, churches and neighborhoods and they can only be in light or heavy industrial areas. In addition, they can’t have door or window coverings, electronic keypad mechanisms or membership requirements.
Mayor Javier Joven said the city received an email from an owner/operator who said the prohibition of check in measures such as keypads and memberships creates a security issue for game rooms.
Odessa Police Department Sgt. Ian Kapets told the council some game rooms require members to place their hand over a scanner so they can track frequent customers. However, he said having them could be problematic for undercover inspections.
Kapets also noted that in the hundreds of undercover inspections he’s done over the last four years, he’s never been checked in via that measure.
Council members Tom Sprawls, Detra White and Steve Thompson all expressed some concern about the 1,500-foot requirement, noting City Attorney Natasha Brooks has said municipalities are only allowed to impose a 300-foot requirement.
However, Brooks also told the council Tuesday night that she had a “really productive meeting” with county officials last week to work on an inter-local agreement that would, if passed by the commissioners and council members, render the city’s ordinance moot. The county’s ordinance would supersede the city’s ordinance and the county is allowed to impose a 1,500-foot requirement. In addition, the county could also agree to restrict game rooms to light and heavy industrial areas and impose some of the other restrictions the city favors.
In the end, Sprawls remained the dissenting vote. Council member Mari Willis was absent from the meeting.
In other matters, the council approved the purchase of 11 new patrol units, one new K-9 unit and three new administrative vehicles for a total cost of just under $1.2 million.
Chief Mike Gerke said the city is replacing 15 units, the majority of which are 2013 and 2015 models. The new Chevrolet Tahoes will have white hoods instead of black ones that don’t hold up well under the sun, he said.
