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Massachusetts town lifts 32-year ban on arcade games
Residents in Marshfield, Massachusetts, overturned a 32-year ban on arcade games this week, allowing public venues to set up coin-operated arcade cabinets. It was a close vote, 203-175. The ban entered the Marshfield books in 1982, and in 1983, it was upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The town attempted to overturn it in 1994 and 2011, but both votes were unsuccessful. An article in the Christian Science Monitor in 1983 outlined proponents' reasoning: "The games are said to be addictive to youth, who will skip school and spend unreasonable sums of money to play them at a quarter – and sometimes 50 cents – a pop, says Thomas R. Jackson, a retired narcotics agent and the resident who proposed the ban. Further, he says, gambling and drug activity are connected to the video game locations where youth congregate unsupervised." Marshfield resident Craig Rondeau led the successful petition to overturn the ban. Rondeau told the Patriot Ledger that video games help children hone problem-solving and social skills, and they encourage creativity. Rondeau found six businesses to sign on to overturn the ban. "They want the opportunity to choose," he said. "Let's give them back their right to choose."
Mass. town to consider lifting 29-year ban on coin-op games
In 1982, sensing that its quaint, coastal way of life was being threatened by the coin-operated craze sweeping the nation's youth, Marshfield, Massachusetts banned arcade games from public establishments. The local law was upheld by the state's Supreme Court the following year and has remained in place ever since. Three decades later, residents are starting to wonder if "the whole hysteria back in 1982," as current Marshfield Selectmen chair Patricia Reilly put it to WCBV Boston, had misguided their good intentions. After all, state law permits Keno to be allowed in bars and other public buildings in town. What could be so wrong about a little Big Buck Hunter edged up against the far corner of the local watering hole? The video game ban will be challenged at next week's town meeting when voters can overturn the seemingly archaic decree. Of course, there are still those who fear such change could forever alter the character of this South Shore Shangri-La. "We're a coastal town," insists former selectwoman Faith Jean, who helped pass the law back in '82, to CBS Boston. "Now are we an amusement coastal town or are we fishing and swimming and sailing?" "We are not talking about little video games that kids play or pinball machines. We are talking about slot machines, gambling machines," adds Jean in the WCBV Boston report. "Coin-operated devices are one more thing your kids will be asking money for. What kind of town do we want Marshfield to be?" For the record, Reilly expects the repeal to pass. [Image credit: drsparc]
