(Jamma) This week in Bolzano the third phase of the proceeding relating to the removal of slot machines from city bars was started. Sa will now proceed to revoke the licenses, following the third offence, for another fifteen years.
"The administration - underlines Mirco Benetello of Confesercenti - is proceeding in blocks of 15-20 bars at a time and I don't think I'm far from reality if I say that we are now close to one hundred".
In reality, the match is far from over because there are still no pronouncements on the merits by the Tar and the justices of the peace - expected for the autumn - but faced with the risk of closing the business and a criminal complaint many exhibitors have preferred to temporarily backtrack. This is the case, for example, of some bars run by Chinese, but there are many other similar cases, to the point of suggesting – at least these are the speculations made by various operators but also by some lawyers – that the municipal police can having used a not nearly as harsh line for local bartenders. Hypothesis, the latter, returned to the sender by the commander Sergio Ronchetti. «I can say, without fear of being contradicted, that the operational choices, on the spot checks that we have been carrying out for months now, certainly do not depend on the nationality of the managers but rather on the proximity of the bars with slots to sensitive places. We all use the same yardstick and the same rigor. The line hasn't changed since the first round of testing, and it won't change in the future. Quite simply, many Chinese, faced with the risk of going out of business, preferred to deprive themselves of the income from the machines».
