A POKER arcade is a place to gamble, but several communities on Saipan are now starting to believe that it is also a place where crime is often committed.
Thus, when the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation recently passed H.L.B. 13-18, which seeks to increase poker fee collections, it was not only meant to pay for the retroactive salaries of government employees. It was also a move to dissuade businessmen from putting up more poker shops on the island.
“We needed to find out a mitigating mechanism to deter the proliferation of poker shops, particularly in the villages. The communities have been raising this issue with the Legislature. They said it’s getting to a point where it is now a nuisance and no longer a contributing commercial entity,” said House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, R-Saipan.
By increasing the annual license fee for every poker machine by 200 percent or from $2,000 to $6,000, Hosfchneider said the delegation made it “prohibitively costly” for owners to add more units of poker machines in their establishments.
He said that when the delegation looked at the average number of licenses and how many machines they have acquired, they were “quite surprised to see that the affordability at the entry level was equivalent to five machines.”
Aside from making it prohibitively costly, the delegation, he said, also thought of setting a threshold on the number of machines that every establishment can have and not allowing the transfer of machines if they are not licensed.
Hofschneider said H.L.B. 13-18 introduced by Rep. Arnold I. Palacios, R-Saipan, has already been sent to Gov. Juan N. Babauta for his consideration.
“I hope the governor will sign it into law. It may have an impact on revenue collection. But I think it’s a policy decision to remove those unsightly (poker shops), the negative perceptions of the community (about it) and the kinds of problem that it attracts,” said the speaker.
