Florida city shuts down Bingo games in city trailer park. Requires million dollar liability coverage

[madfloridian]

The Florida economy is tanking, teachers are rallying in Tallahassee to stop education cuts, people can not get their unemployment benefits, insurance companies are leaving the state. And a city manager from the little town of Ft. Meade, Florida wants a Bingo game shut down in a city trailer park.

A million dollar liability policy? For a low stakes Bingo game?

Fort Meade Bingo Games Shut Down

FORT MEADE | City Manager Fred Hilliard has shut down the bingo game in Fort Meade’s City Mobile Home Park. Residents of the park, which is owned by the city, were told they had to get liability insurance and give the city the names of those serving on the bingo board of directors, Hilliard said.

“They said they didn’t have to do that,” he said, “but that’s not true.”

Since the games are being played on city property, the city is requiring that the group get $1 million in liability coverage. Hilliard said the city has told the bingo organizers that they must submit their names, addresses and Social Security numbers to city administrators.

“That is state law,” he said. “I can’t change that.”

Hilliard said Thursday he’s been working with the bingo organizers since discovering earlier this year that state law requires the city to pass an ordinance governing bingo games on city-owned property.

Surely there is some flexibility in a law like that. Surely.

Bev DeLong, chairwoman of the park’s bingo program, said the group sees the games as a social event.

“Nobody’s making any money from this,” she said last month. “Our games are small, but the residents have a good time. For some of these old folks, this is all they have and they look forward to it.”

[SoCalDem]

1. Florida needs an income tax..like MOST states have

They have been lucky for a long time, to have had the tourist money, and every summer, the national govt money, when hurricanes hit, but it's time for Florida to grow up, and start raising their own money.

Tourists are broke, house-buyers in Florida cannot afford more property taxes on upside-down houses..

Bingo won't "do" it..

Maybe Trump could buy Florida

[bluestateguy]

2. We HAVE become to litigious of a society

Too many people suing each other has produced this kind of paranoia.

[EFerrari]

3. As a young couple, we used to go play with Mom in law on Friday nights

in her park. There were about 12 of us and we had a great time, breaking up the game in time for "Dallas". Somebody always brought dessert and nobody paid for insurance. lol

[SteppingRazor]

4. Hey, that's less than an hour's drive from the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa.

Can't have competition now, can we?

The police raided all those little small-time bingo halls here in South Florida quite a while ago. If there's any gambling going to be done, it's going to be done on Indian land or in pari-mutuels. Hell, I'm surprised that latter category even managed to get approved over the objections of the Seminoles.

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Not to hijack this thread, but how's the bingo scene in Virginia lately?

Back in 1978-1980 I, as a minor child of age 9 when I first moved there, was able to play bingo with my mother in a number of private and church-run bingo games, some for serious money (progressive jackpots with $500 and $1,000 bases, and Winner Take All games)! And play bingo I did, because my mother was a seriously addictive personality and she lived for that shit and seemed to feel that dragging me along somehow gave it all a feeling of legitimacy. :shrug:

After all these years I still remember the names of a few of the bingo halls around Roanoke, VA. There was Happy's, Big John's, Carl's, and one in a fairly new Catholic church whose name I can't recall.

I would imagine that by now, the nanny state must have tightened way down on the regulations. Anyone know?

[madfloridian]

6. 9 days ago they said the games could go on with a $50 permit fee.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090310/NEWS/903101955/1338?Title=City-Approves-Regulating-of-Bingo-Games

" Published: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 11:52 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 11:53 p.m.

City commissioners in Fort Meade unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday that regulates the bingo games at the city-owned mobile home park.

City Attorney Tom Cloud said the commission needed to approve the ordinance because the city owns the mobile home park. Under state law, the city is required to oversee bingo operations at the park, he said.

'This ordinance makes it lawful,' he said Tuesday. Bingo organizers must pay an annual $50 permit fee, which they've said they'll do today. If that's done, tonight's game will take place as scheduled."

What changed in 9 days?

Couldn't they just have turned a blind eye to this game in the trailer park?