Tarrant County commissioners consider crackdown on game rooms
It’s long been an open secret that illegal cash payouts are doled out in game rooms, but Tarrant County residents can expect crackdowns as the county considers an ordinance to regulate the businesses.
Under Texas law, game room owners are legally allowed to operate the popular slot machines, often known as eight-liners, as long as prizes aren’t paid in cash and aren’t worth more than $5. And in Fort Worth, the city takes it a step further, enforcing various requirements.
But the rules are often broken, and residents have long complained game rooms are hotbeds for crime.
In August, 22 people were detained or arrested in a raid of a Fort Worth game room, and a month earlier a raid led to the arrest of a game room employee and and gambling citations for eight customers. An Arlington resident was fatally shot in front of a game room on Christmas Eve in 2018.
State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, remembers that shooting well. It was in her district.
“This is in my community,” Collier said. “One death is too many. And so when you have this type of illegal business, then it attracts seedy behavior. And so we’ve got to try to weed that out of the community.”
Tarrant County has had a chance to since 2017 after a state law extended regulatory authority to the county. But it didn’t take action at the time, in part, because county commissioners felt it was an unfunded mandate that cities were better suited to regulate.
Now two years later, Tarrant County Commissioners expect to vote Tuesday on an ordinance that would establish regulations, fees for permits and more. Collier is holding a town hall on game rooms at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Tarrant County College Opportunity Center.
“Citizens, understandably, are agnostic when it comes to who does the regulating. They just want it done,” Tarrant County Commissioner Roy C. Brooks said. “So we’re going to do something about it and regulate these establishments.”
Regulating game rooms in Fort Worth
In 2014, the Fort Worth City Council passed an ordinance that imposed a slew of requirements on game rooms. It restricted them to industrial-zoned areas, and banned them from within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, hospitals or residential areas.
The ordinance also imposed operating hours and requirements for the buildings, capped the maximum number of machines at 30 and required owners to submit site plans to the city and apply for a permit.
“I think this ordinance was written to eliminate game rooms, not regulate them,” one game room operator said at the time.
She wasn’t alone. Game room operators and gaming machine companies quickly sued the city. Portions of the ordinance related to restricting game rooms to certain areas were struck down.
The extent of the city’s oversight is still being debated in the courts. The case is before the Texas Supreme Court with arguments scheduled for Jan. 28, senior city attorney Chris Mosley said.
The city was challenged, in part, on whether it had the jurisdiction to enforce game room licensing and if zoning restrictions had gone beyond state law. Mosley said the city was encouraged by the county’s ordinance.
Fort Worth City Councilman Brian Byrd said game rooms were a major topic of discussion when he knocked on doors during his 2017 campaign. Residents told him they were worried about increased crime, like robbery, and effects on property values.
A woman was shot last summer during an attempted robbery at a game room in a north side neighborhood. It was far from Byrd’s district but concerning nonetheless because of the large number of game rooms near U.S. 377 in the western part of his district, he said.
“You want a neighborhood you’re proud of and when these game rooms move in and have these kinds of effects it hurts,” he said.
A 2017 state law extended regulatory authority of game rooms to Tarrant County, along with the counties of Ector, Harrison and Smith. Previously, only a handful of counties, including Harris and Fort Bend, had the ability to regulate under state law.
But in Tarrant County, commissioners didn’t immediately take action like lawmakers had anticipated.
So this past legislative session, Collier filed legislation that would have granted local municipalities, like Fort Worth, the ability to enforce zoning regulations when overseeing game rooms. But the bill didn’t pass out of committee, in an effort to give Tarrant County and Fort Worth the ability to collaborate on their own first, Collier said.
County ordinance
The county’s delay was, in part, to see what the legislature would do this session.
“The legislature giving us this authority represents an unfunded mandate,” Brooks said. “They gave us the authority, but they didn’t send any money with the authority, so all of this is going to have to be done on the backs of our local taxpayers.”
The Tarrant County Commissioners Court has been discussing the issue of game rooms since last spring, and after tweaking and revising a draft ordinance for the past month, are poised to put it to a vote Tuesday. A state law that went into effect Sept. 1 extended regulatory authority of game rooms to counties statewide.
“It was an unusual and unexpected move in that counties in Texas don’t have the authority to regulate land use,” Brooks said. “Consequently, we don’t have the infrastructure to do this effectively.”
Which is why the 29-page proposed ordinance features “interlocal agreements,” allowing cities to enter into an arrangement with the county to share administrative responsibilities to ensure enforcement occurs. For example, a city or town could appoint a “Game Room Permit Administrator” who would then be the main official responsible for enforcement in that town, rather than the Tarrant County Sheriff.
The ordinance also requires game room owners to obtain a permit. The permit process includes a long list of requirements, including a detailed application, a non-refundable fee of $1,000 and up to three inspections of the proposed game room to ensure compliance. A $1,000 fee is also required to renew the game room permit each year.
A permit can be denied, revoked or suspended for a variety of reasons, including past criminal offenses, previously revoked permits, failure to meet requirements and more. A game room permit holder or applicant can appeal the decision before a hearing examiner, who will be appointed by the Commissioners Court.
The proposed game room ordinance was modeled after Harris County’s, because theirs has withstood court challenges, Brooks said.
And while the ordinance will allow the county to regulate many aspects of game rooms, under state law commissioners are only allowed to regulate game rooms that feature six or more gaming machines.
“I don’t like them. I wish we could regulate them off to not have any. The whole problem that we’ve got is by the legislature putting that number there,” Judge Glen Whitley said during an Oct. 15 Commissioners Court meeting. He used the example that a person could own five game rooms in a strip mall, stock them with five machines each and still be exempt from regulations.
“We could have a total of 25 machines,” Whitley said. “And even if they’re owned by the same individual, we’ve got no control of anything under six.”
But Collier said she doesn’t buy that argument. If a game room is illegally operating machines, local officials can already take enforcement action on those businesses.
Brooks said he would prefer to have game rooms and eight-liner machines go away entirely.
“But the state has not given us the ability to make that happen,” Brooks said. “We are forever hopeful.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2019 at 1:36 PM.
