Coin Machine Review (& Pacific ...)

Chicago Tribune Disclisses
N. Y. Pin Game Ban
CHICAGO-The pin ball industry here
perused with great interest an extended
review of the pin ball situation, published
in the form of a staff article by the Chicago
Tribune. The Tribune frequently seems to
poke criticism or derision at the City of
New York and the tone of the pin ball
article was in this vein.
Headline said: uN ew Yorkers Tilted Out
of Pin Ball Play; O'Dwyer signs bill to
outlaw pastime." First paragraph said, "New
Yorkers, long deprived of 50·cent burlesque,
and disfranchised of the privilege of bet-
ting a deuce or so with a handbook . . .
were tilted out of another pastime recently
when Mayor O'Dwyer signed a law ban-
ning pin ball machines."
Seemed as if the Tribune might be
starting to lecture Chicago officials on
having kept pin ball illegal for so many
years. The article did imply that Mayor
O'Dwyer may have been personally antag-
onistic to pin ball because the industry
represents "Chicago interests." But nary
a word about Chicago mayors who have
kept the games out of their own city.
The Tribune review of the New York
move against pin ball was rather complete
and apparently accurate in its coverage,
thus giving Chicago citizens a real story
of how New York treats one of its impor-
tant commercial products.
The crusade against pin ball was started
personally by Mayor O'Dwyer, the Tribune
said, in April 1946 when the mayor told
officials he had learned that "big money
interests from Chicago" had planned to
invade the city with the games. A repre-
sentative of the Chicago interests had called
a meeting of 100 small operators, told them
the time was ripe, and collected a fee of
$25 from each operator to cover legal ex-
penses.
Machines to have been placed were the
kind that could easily be adjusted to give
free plays, the New York mayor said. The
Tribune then says the mayor called on and
received support in the anti-pinball drive
from various city agencies, civic and school
organizations.
The Tribune review, gave a fairly com-
plete statement of the arguments of the
city and also representatives of the pin ball
trade in the court hearings that began with
a General Sessions Court decision (favor·
able to operators) given in Oct. 1947, and
which led to the recent unfavorable deci-
sion by Supreme Court Justice Pecora who
upheld the city in its seizure of games.
The Tribune report ends by saying: "Not
all pin ball machines will disappear, how-
ever. There are hundreds of them in li-
censed arcades."
The Chicago Daily News merely noted
the New York action on pin ball by pub-
lishing a brief but very unfavorable United
Press dispatch. In this item Mayor O'Dwyer
was quoted as making statements which
linked pin ball interests with the criminal
element in Brooklyn. The News has thus
far in 1948 started drives of its own on
phonograph operators in Chicago, the ob-
ject seeming to be chiefly "to get a story."
New York Reports
NEW YORK-New York newspapers
had published many columns of material
on the pin ball situation in the city in
recent months. The decision of Supreme
Court Justice Pecora, June 25, denied an
injunction which operators sought and up-
held the city in seizing pin ball games.
Newspapers apparently accepted the court
action as writing the final chapter in a
situation that had been smoldering since
the fall of 1946 and hence published fact-
ual reports on the decision.
The New York Times devoted 19 column
inches to reporting the court hearing, argu-
ments and decision. The court decision fol-
lowed soon after the city council, by a
strictly party vote of 12 to 10, had passed
an ordinance to ban pin ball. The council
action was reviewed in our July issue,
page 6.
Judge Pecora rendered an extempo-
raneous opinion and newspaper reports nat-
urally gave emphasis to some of the most
unfavorable statements made in the oral
verdict. Probably most stress was placed
on the fact that a city engineer had dem-
onstrated before the judge how two games
could easily be converted to give free plays.
Judge Pecora said he had no hesitation
in holding that the games in question are
in violation of Section 982 of the Penal
Code (the Slot Machine Law) .... This section
and amendments to it have had quite a
history in relation to the coin machine
trade.
_
Many years ago, at a time when pin ball
was new and arcades in New York were
flashing merchandise prizes on pin ball, an
Assemblyman authored a bill which at the
time seemed so worded as to ban amuse-
ment games. The legislator, however, pro-
fessed to be friendly to amusement games
and when legal actions developed later he
helped the games cause by stating his view
of the intent of . the legislation, that it was
never intended to be so extreme. The
statute has remained on the books these
many years, however, as a constant threat
against amusement games any time a court
chose to interpret it strictly.
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13
AUGUST, 1948
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