“The Council of State has accepted the appeal presented by FIT-STS against the operating hours of entertainment machines established in 2019 by the Mayor of Cairo Montenotte (SV). This is the second half of a legal battle that began the day after the publication of the ordinance which allowed the slots to operate exclusively in the 19.00pm-07.00am time slot. The FIT immediately challenged the provision before the Liguria TAR which upheld it limited to the sanctioning aspect". This is what he wrote in a note Union of sports receivers.
“The timetables had been maintained and, for this reason, the FIT appealed to the higher body of Administrative Justice, this time obtaining an important victory for the tobacconists-receivers of Cairo. The judges - continues the note - have in fact ordered the annulment of the union order as it is "unreasonable, disproportionate" and generating "a serious disparity in treatment between subjects equally authorized to install the devices in question".
The FIT, in its detailed appeal, had observed how the fact that the machines could only be turned on at night was equivalent to completely excluding this gaming product from tobacconists, which are open during the day. We will talk in detail about this ruling – adds STS – in the upcoming paper issue of “Il Ricevitore Italiano”. Here we briefly highlight two important steps. The first: the judges criticize "the Mayor's failure to hear the FIT, the national association most representative of the category of monopoly retailers - state concessionaires" when the ordinance was drafted. Secondly, the Council of State supports, expressly quoting it, the statement of the Customs and Monopolies Agency, which intervened in the proceedings with its own brief, according to which the resale "constitutes an environment frequented by a differentiated user (not players only) with an owner-operator who carries out supervision and control activities functional to the regular performance of the service" and, due to this specificity, can install a greater number of devices compared to other types of commercial establishments", concludes the note.
