NC Towns Restricting Video Poker

As most folk from the Carolinas know, the video poker games are illegal here in South Carolina, and some like to take the short drive over the state line to play the games. I liked to spend a buck or two on the games myself back when they had them here in SC., but that could soon change for some. Even though a court in North Carolina had ruled that NC. cannot outlaw video poker machines because they are allowed at a video games casino on the Cherokee Indian reservation near Asheville, some Brunswick County towns are taking on the video poker laws.

Officials in Shallotte, Southport and Boiling Spring Lakes are working on gaming ordinances and commissioners from Ocean Isle Beach have already scheduled an August 31st public hearing on a proposed ordinance that would place restrictions on where businesses with electronic gaming can be located.

The Sun News reported that the proposed ordinances in Shallotte and Ocean Isle Beach would limit the businesses to commercial zoning areas and require that at least 1,500 feet separate any two gaming businesses or any gaming business from things such as churches, day care centers and movie theaters that show pictures rated G or PG. This doesn’t sound too bad to me, and in my opinion it would probably be a good thing to centralize the businesses in one area of the towns.

Dean Walters, the Ocean Isle Beach Commissioner, said he didn’t have any personal objections to people gambling at the machines, but doesn’t want his town to become the county’s center for gaming operations.

It doesn’t sound as if the towns are wanting to out right make the video poker machines illegal, just restrict where and how many business operate the machines, and as long as it’s done correctly I see no problems with that. These small towns need to keep their “character” without stepping on the individual rights of others…..and that’s not always easy to do.

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