Fla. House votes to ban so-called Internet cafes
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida House on Thursday voted to shut down more than 1,000 storefront operations known as Internet cafes that sprouted across the state in the last five years.
Backers of the legislation say the measure will eliminate gambling operations that exploited a loophole in the law to set up shops that target the poor and the elderly in the state.
"These are truly the crack cocaine of gambling," said Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood and sponsor of the bill (HB 3).
Internet cafes sell customers either phone cards or Internet time. But they also offer customers a chance to redeem electronic sweepstakes on computers that use software that mimics casino-styled games.
Sweepstakes — such as those handed out by fast-food restaurants like McDonald's — have been legal for decades. But the explosion of Internet cafes has triggered a debate about whether or not they are actually a form of illegal gambling. Some counties have tried to shut down the operations completely, while others have chosen to pass ordinances that regulate them.
Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi as well as prosecutors and sheriffs across the state have called for legislators to ban the operations.
But the push to ban the Internet cafes may go nowhere.
So far the Florida Senate has refused to move a Senate bill that calls for a ban.
Senators instead say they want to pass a bill that would regulate the cafes instead. They contend that banning the cafes now would result in the loss of thousands of jobs for those who now work at them.
But Plakon and other supporters of the ban warn that regulating the operations could threaten payments the state is now receiving from the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
The tribe has received legal opinions that says any effort to keep open Internet cafes would violate the 2010 compact that granted the Seminoles exclusive gambling rights in exchange for paying the state $1 billion over a five-year period. The Seminoles operate both slot machines and card games such as blackjack at a handful of casinos including ones in South Florida and Tampa.
The House vote in favor of the ban was 72-43 but it did not split strictly across partisan lines.
Three Democrats voted for the bill, while 9 Republicans voted with Democrats in opposition.
Rep. Eric Fresen, R-Miami, said he could not support the bill because it was another "piecemeal" effort to deal with gambling.
Fresen was the sponsor of a major overhaul of the state's gambling laws that also would have allowed the creation of three massive casinos in South Florida. But Fresen's bill would have also changed the state's regulation of all gambling related businesses. The bill died earlier this session.
Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West, called the bill "fatally flawed" and disputed that all of the Internet cafes were engaged in questionable gambling activities.
"I don't think every single one of them is doing gambling," Saunders said.
Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman for a coalition of groups involved in Internet cafes, said that the group agreed "that the electronic sweepstakes technology has outpaced current law." But she added that changes should be "made to the law so that bad operators can be shut down, and law enforcement and local governments can have the measuring stick they need to distinguish between the law abiding facilities and the questionable ones."
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