Illegal slot machines get a crushing
POST FALLS – Seven gambling machines are set this morning to make sounds they never did in all their years of play.
Post Falls police plan to crunch and crush at 10 a.m. the machines seized from the Post Falls Eagles club in a September 2006 illegal gambling raid. The machines will be loaded on to the back of a dump truck and destroyed with a backhoe outside police headquarters, said Post Falls Police Lt. Greg McLean.
No one was charged with a crime in relation to the illegal gambling operation, but the Eagles board members were fined $300 each and the machines were confiscated.
Money from the gambling was used to fund charitable donations, not for personal gain, said Eagles Post Falls Aerie President Ben Benson.
“The judge to me was really fair,” Benson said.
The Eagles club didn’t emerge entirely unscathed. In addition to the fines, the fraternal club was closed for a two-week Idaho State Police Alcohol Beverage Control suspension in late November for violating its alcohol license by operating the gambling machines.
However, in a court deal, the fraternal group was repaid the more than $8,000 seized along with the machines, McLean said.
“It’s a little disappointing. I think the Eagles giving to charities and the fact that they are in large part an elderly organization got them a lot of slack,” said McLean, who added that his department received many complaints from the public about the raid.
McLean said that club officers were counseled about the legality of the machines in 2005, a year before the raid, giving them the opportunity to stop the gambling operation.
“We couldn’t overlook the fact that the money they were giving to charity came from gambling proceeds,” he said.
The machines did not pay out money, but players were awarded a nickel per point. Post Falls police found some of the board members counting money during their early morning raid.
Alcohol Beverage Control suspensions are administrative matters, separate from criminal proceedings, said Idaho State Police Sgt. Gregory Harris. Because the gambling operation was a violation of the Eagles club’s liquor license the Alcohol Beverage Control had the option of issuing a warning, fine, suspension or revocation under such circumstances, Harris said.
Club officers made the best of the temporary closure, remodeling portions of the club, said Aerie President Benson. They installed a new textured ceiling, rebuilt the back bar and added new lights – “things you couldn’t get done during the course of normal operations,” Benson said.
He added that the Eagles had hoped to get the machines back to sell to another user. “If anyone ever brought up bringing those machines back for our use, well, we’re not going to do that,” he said. “We really want it to go away.”