The Government Performance and Financial Management committee of the Dallas City Council recently voted 4-1 to include legalized gambling as one of its top legislative priorities. The next step will be approval from the full council, which has voted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight card rooms.
According to KERA News, District 1 council member Chad West said at the committee meeting, “I feel like this is a foregone conclusion at some point in the future. If we don’t prepare for it in Dallas, we have cities like Arlington and Irving that will happily take the mantle and allow for it in their cities.”
West said the state is likely to legalize casino gambling, sports betting and card rooms, so the city must be prepared.
Per KERA, he said, “For me, we should get ahead of it and not sit back and wait and let our sister cities jump out in front of it. I think one way to get ahead of it is for us to be down in Austin showing our support for legalization, regulation and taxes.”
Agreeing with West, District 9 council member Paula Blackmon commented, “Other cities in this region will take it, if we don’t and we have a big bill coming up and this is a way to do it. I’m going to support it because I do think it’s time to actually start being for something, instead of against something, in this city.”
District 12 council member Cara Mendelsohn said she agreed with West about preparing for the future, but she added, “I totally disagree about the card rooms and don’t think that should be included in this item. Overall, I don’t know that preparing needs to be part of a legislative agenda, especially when you’ve already had the Lieutenant Governor of Texas say ‘this isn’t going to happen’.”
Last year, the council approved additional funds for legal fees in a dispute in which the city’s building official revoked certificates of occupancy from two poker houses. However, the Dallas Board of Adjustments overturned the revoked permits and the building official then filed a lawsuit against the board.
At the time, West and District 6 council member Omar Narvaez protested what they claimed was a waste of taxpayer money. Per KERA, West said, “I am begrudgingly supporting granting more attorney’s fees for this ridiculous ordinance that we have supported as a council. Where does it end? When do we stop paying for this litigation?”
