Internet café patrons set to protest
Staff Report
Caught off guard by the speed with which state lawmakers are acting to ban Internet cafés, which would include about a dozen in Lake and Sumter counties, supporters are flocking to Tallahassee to try to save the parlors.
Nearly a week after a multistate illegal gambling investigation led to dozens of arrests, and the resignation of Florida's lieutenant governor, a Senate panel Monday cleared its version of a ban on the gambling establishments. The vote follows a House committee's clearing of its own bill on Friday banning the strip-mall casinos.
Internet cafe owners, workers and customers are showing up in Tallahassee to defend the businesses, saying they provide a social outlet to senior citizens and describing their regular clientele as "like family." Others added that the cafés provide needed jobs and pay rent for retail space that otherwise would go empty.
One of these customers was James Chamney, a retired autoworker from Eustis, who told Jacksonville Times-Union columnist Ron Littlefield that the cafés are a "good setting" for seniors.
"We enjoy it," he said. "We don't consider it gambling because we are not there to win."
Many don't. According to the recent investigation of cafés run by Allied Veterans of the World, the organization withdrew "gambling proceeds" of $10.5 million from its Clermont operation between 2008 and 2012. Another $9 million was taken from its Eustis operation during the same period. That's roughly $2 million dollars a year earned by the two businesses.
One customer using the Clermont café, Jeannette M. Hinkson, later told investigators she spent $66,150 there in a single year, "not counting the money I won from them and put back in their machines."
Some supporters in Tallahassee this week wore T-shirts that said "Regulate, Do Not Eliminate," but Sen. Andy Gardiner, an Orlando Republican, dashed their hopes.
"That is just not where we are at this point," he told the audience before voting for the ban.
Tami Patel has owned Spring Hill's "Lucky Duck 2" Internet café in nearby Hernando County for three years. Her senior citizen customers are "outraged" about the proposed ban she told a reporter.
"It's a social gathering place for those who don't have family," she said. "We had people who wanted to get on a bus and come up to Tallahassee just to speak out on this."
Patel didn't say how much she makes at her café, but othe owners owners estimated average profits at about $5,000 a week. That's about a quarter-million dollars a year.
Although the cafés claim they are only selling Internet time and offering free sweepstakes to play "entertaining games," this was disputed by lead investigator Capt. James Gibson of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.
Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto told the crowd she had been looking up Internet cafés in Florida on Google to see how they presented themselves to customers.
"They advertise poker, they advertise games of chance, they advertise daily payouts," the Fort Myers Republican and majority leader said. "To me, that sounds like gambling."
As part of their investigation, investigators said they seized about 300 bank accounts containing $64.7 million, plus assets likes real estate and dozens of exotic vehicles.
The Legislature is feeling the pressure to act on the storefront gambling dens after Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigned last week in the wake of the investigation. She provided public-relations representation to the operation before her election and has not been charged.
"I put some of the burden on us," Sen. John Thrasher said about how the cafés have been able to proliferate. "Perhaps we should have acted two or three years ago. Perhaps we should have even acted (before) that."a
Friday, March 22, 2013 - www.dailycommercial.com/22internet