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AOE Keynote Address:
'We Can't Just Let
Things Happen'
By David Pierson
"We have to take an active role in
the marketplace," Gary Stern told a
crowd of about 400 industry people
at the keynote Early Bird session of
the Amusement Operators Expo
March 11 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel
in New Orleans.
"We have to quit thinking of this as
a small industry," he said, "because it
isn't. We're too big to let things just
continue to happen. We have to take
an active hand."
As the session unfolded, it became
clear exactly what "an active hand"
meant: active lobbying at both the
state and national levels; a concerted
public relations campaign, maybe
even a national coin-op advertising
program; a united defense against
adverse legislation; and a unified
stand against questionable equip-
ment.
Stern-who appeared on the key-
note panel with industry attorney
Rufus King and PLAY METER
Magazine Publisher Ralph C. Lally II,
the sponsor of the show-told the
early convention arrivals that the
coin-operated amusement industry
is on the verge of even greater gains
than ever before. But he warned that
with this growing acceptance comes
a responsibility on the part of the
industry to police itself.
[Complete AOE show coverage
will appear in the next issue .]
Stern also said the coin-op
amusement trade should start to
expect governmental regulations,
and so all sectors of the industry
should work closely to make sure the ·
resulting regulations are not
injurious to its goals.
"We are too big to hide," Stern
said. "We must work with the people
Gary Stern
Rufus King
who are going to regulate us to make
sure those regulations are most ac-
ceptable to our industry."
He touched on some of the areas
where the industry must work
closely with government to achieve
workable standards. Some of those
areas were zoning ordinances
(which if unchecked could outlaw or
restrict amusement machines); local
and state taxes and licenses (which
have generally gone unchecked and
presently show a nationwide patch-
work of overtaxation); and various
federal regulation hearings (which if
allowed to go -unanswered would
effectively stop the production of
~w amusement equipment).
These are all areas, Stem said,
where the industry should work in
partnership with go vernme nta l
bodies to make sure that the regula-
tions affecting the industry are
workable.
"What we need," Stern continued,
is an active lobbyist. We can't just let
things happen as they have in the
past. We're too big an industry for
that."
During the course of his presenta-
tion, Stern levelled an attack against
the operators' national association,
the AMOA. He stated that it had
become b'ogged down in fighting "a
losing copyright law" when it s o d
have devoted more of its energies to
addressing itself to the host of other
issues now facing the industry.
"There Is so much the AMOA
should do," Stern said. "There is
potential there for so much political
clout."
But then he pointed ou that these
issues affect not only the opera: ors
but the industry as a whole. And he
'What we need is an active ·lobbyist. We can't just let
things happen as they have in the past.' -Gary Stern
PlAY METER, May 15, 1961
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