The Council of State rejected the appeal of a dealer of the network of cash-winning entertainment machines for the annulment of the ruling of the TAR which had rejected the appeal against the regulation of the Municipality of Pavia which introduces limitations on the operating hours of the slots. On that occasion, the TAR had held that the network concessionaire was not entitled to present the appeal in consideration of the fact that the company "did not have a current, concrete and differentiated interest, having not demonstrated that it manages gaming points in the territory". municipality to which the burdened documents pertain".
The Council of State, with a ruling dated 20 February, denies the TAR, believing that the company, as a concessionaire for the management of legal gaming via devices, is in a different legal position from the rest of the community, as the recipient of administrative measures which have the aim of limiting the use of legal gaming machines, negatively impacting the economic activity conducted by the company, in particular the revenues deriving from the collection of legal gaming.
Likewise, the existence of the interest in appealing also does not appear to be open to doubt, given that the possible annulment of the contested provisions would eliminate the limits imposed by the Municipality of Pavia on the exercise of the activity in question".
As for the appeal against the regulation, from reading the contested provision, the CDS "deduces, on the contrary, an accurate analysis of the gambling phenomenon in the territory of the Municipality of Pavia, also with particular reference to the youth community. The fact that most of the data refers to 2013 depends on the fact that the first limitations were introduced in the 2014 union ordinance, but the fact that in the following years the picture improved slightly confirms, rather than contradicts, the effectiveness of the limitations introduced and the need to maintain them given the persistence of the phenomenon".
