Whakatāne's Returned Services Association has made a plea to council for help to reopen its gaming room after its licence expired due to a paperwork error.
In spite of its sinking lid policy on electronic gambling machines, Whakatāne District Council has been asked to grant a consent for the local RSA to operate its pokie machines.
The Whakatāne RSA owns 18 pokie machines, which, at a council hearing committee meeting yesterday, association president Victor Hape said accounted for 30 to 40% of its income, which it used for the benefit of the community.
The income from the pokie machines helped pay for a venue for groups to meet up, free firewood for elderly members, and community grants, Hape said.
It previously held a Class 4 Gambling Machine Operators Licence from the Department of Internal Affairs to operate the machines but because of an administrative error last year, this licence had expired.
The RSA had been advised by the department in June that it needed to close its gaming room.
The club needed to have renewed its licence within six months of July 1 last year, but failed to do so.
Hape told the meeting that the general manager, who has since left, had said they had completed the necessary paperwork, but a forensic check on the organisation’s scanner showed it had never been sent.
Because the license has lapsed, the RSA now required a consent from the council to apply for a new one.
However, the council has a Gambling Venues Policy, last updated in 2022, with an objective to reduce the total number of licenced gaming machines in the district.
The policy states that the council will not grant consents for any new venues or new machines at existing venues.
The council’s community regulations manager Carl Redaelli said the loss of license had been due to "an honest mistake" and as the RSA was not a new venue and was not asking to increase its number of machines, granting the consent would not be inconsistent with the policy.
Even if the council does grant the consent for 18 machines, the Gambling Act 2003 only allows venues established after 2001 a maximum of nine machines, Redaelli reported to the committee.
In order to keep operating all 18 machines, the association would need to apply for ministerial approval.
The hearing committee was made up of councillor Nandor Tanczos as chairman, and councillors Julie Jukes and Tu O’Brien.
Jukes asked how often all 18 machines would normally be in use at one time and whether the club’s income would be detrimentally affected if it did not have all 18 machines.
Current general manager Tania King said they were often all in use at the same time, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights.
Hape added that when it next updated its machines it was considering buying only 15 so it would not necessarily hurt the club to reduce the number of machines to 15.
Hape said the necessity to close the machines had impeded the association quite a lot and they had been required to make cost cutting measures such as closing on Sundays and Mondays but they had managed to keep the doors open.
The hearing committee would deliberate and inform the association of its decision via mail.
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