1976-12-14 - Laserfiche WebLink

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December 6, 1976 O: The Honorable Mayor and Members of the Council ROM: Thomas F. Lewcock, City Manager SUBJECT: Bingo Ordinance The 1976 Legislature revised the. law applicable to Bingo operations within the State. These new laws considerably tighten operation requirements and, additionally, require the licensing of all Bingo operations by the munic-. ipality in which such Bingo operation is contained. The law is quite clear that licensing is a mandatory requirement of each city. Cities have the option of either licensing directly in accordance with the State law or adopt their own local ordinance. Because the majority of the provisions of the State law are mandatory, the adoption of a local ordinance would simply be a reflection of the provisions of State law. Nevertheless, it appears to us that _ the way the State law reads is a bit unwieldy and difficult to understand. We therefore have drafted the attached ordinance which contains all of the essential features of the State law but have worded them in such a fashion as to be more understandable to any prospective applicant. It is further pointed out that without a local ordinance no license fee can be established to offset the cost of investigation and enforcement of the Bingo license. When the Council reviews the proposed. ordinance, it will probably become clear that the ordinance is in itself ' somewhat cumbersome, not, however, because of its format, but rather because of the requirements placed on the applicant. These requirements, however, can not be changed with the only control the Council has being -the adoption of a more restrictive standards. It is our understanding that the State enacted this new law because of its concerns that, particularly the large cities, Bingo was in fact becoming a gambling and a profit making venture, which is, of course, prohibited in the State of Minnesota. It seems clear that in order to control the large scale Bingo operation of the core cities, regulations were adopted which became very burdensome for the kind of operation anticipated in our city. To the best of our knowledge the only known ongoing Bingo operation in New Brighton is conducted by the St. Johns Baptist Catholic Church, which also is why we have recommended the relatively low license fee. In several communities the fees have been established at an exorbitant level with the primary intent being to reduce the number of Bingo operations. This would not appear to be a concern in New Brighton at this time; however, should it become one in the future, license fees could be increased and certain regulations be made more restrictive. -