Eight-liners are hereby banned in the city of Edinburg.
The Edinburg city council approved an ordinance outlawing eight-liner game rooms within the city during their meeting on Tuesday.
The move was prompted by calls from residents concerned about an eight-liner game room possibly setting up near a residential area.
“We got several calls from citizens around that area where they’re planning to open it and there’s no restrictions at the moment on eight-liners beside what the state has in place,” said Edinburg Councilman Johnny Garcia. “So the residents were concerned about illegal activity and a lot of movement around the late hours that would be a disturbance to the neighborhood across the street.”
Councilman Dan Diaz said that since the city didn’t have any ordinance in place regulating eight-liners, the city wouldn’t even know if there were eight-liners in the city.
“There’s no rules, regulations, no inspections for eight-liners,” Diaz said.
So when residents called regarding the possibility of one opening near them, the council asked City Attorney Omar Ochoa to look into the issue.
The result was the ordinance that now outright bans them in the city which, legally, was based on a ruling from a Texas appellate court.
In March, the Second Court of Appeals ruled that amusement redemption machines — or eight liners — are unconstitutional because they are lotteries.
In the written opinion, the court said that eight-liners were lotteries because they dispensed prizes purely on chance.
“Because the Operators stipulated that their eight-liners award prizes by chance and for consideration, the machines are lotteries, and the legislature cannot define around that fact,” the court wrote. “In sum, the Operators’ eight-liners are lotteries, and they are unconstitutional.”
The operators of eight-liner game rooms involved in the case are trying to appeal the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.
Ochoa explained that the court ruling provided a legal basis to determine that those types of machines shouldn’t operate at all.
“It doesn’t quite apply statewide just yet but there’s some chance it will get reviewed by the state supreme court, there’s some chance it will get taken up by the Texas legislature,” Ochoa said.
Councilman Jason De Leon voted against the ordinance, saying Wednesday that he didn’t like the idea of banning a possible business opportunity before it even started.
“We haven’t had anyone actually formally file a business plan for eight-liners so I just feel like for us to even put an ordinance for us to not allow them before we have even received an application for one doesn’t even make sense,” De Leon said.
Ochoa told the council during the meeting that filing any kind of application for an eight-liner or eight-liner game rooms hasn’t happened up until now because there was no requirement for them to do so.
He explained there was no licensing requirement that would require eight-liner operators to pay a fee in order to maintain the machine.
“Some cities have that kind of regulations — currently there’s not — so if somebody were operating one, the city doesn’t necessarily receive any revenue,” Ochoa told the council.
Another reason De Leon opposed the ordinance is because he hopes to have more legal, nightlife options in the city.
“But I also do see where some of the other council members feel that it could also bring other types of people out,” De Leon said. “It could bring crime, for all we know, so I can see that point as well.”
Garcia also voted against the ordinance to ban the eight-liners but on Wednesday said he was actually against having them in the city, indicating the lengthy discussion among the council members on whether to ban them or if they could just regulate them caused some confusion.
“I go based on what the community is looking for and they felt that it wasn’t a safe environment for that area,” Garcia said of the residents’ concerns.
The approved ordinance bans anyone from maintaining or operating an amusement redemption machine — or eight-liners — and from operating a game room within city limits.
“There’s an express exemption in here for arcades, for the family games that you usually find at Peter Piper Pizza,” Ochoa said. “That exemption already exists in state law, it’s called the fuzzy animal exception so, essentially, if you’re playing for a nominal gift and not for cash, that’s an exception so this continues that.”
A person who violates the ordinance is subject to a fine of up to $1,000 per violation.
