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Florida House Passes Dave & Buster's Bill

Nicholas_Luvaul/flickr

It’s been two years since Florida passed a law shutting down Internet cafes. Now, the Florida House has approved a bill clarifying that family-friendly amusement centers are perfectly legal, and the Senate version is also close to a vote.

The state was in a hurry to get rid of Internet cafes. The storefront shops were multiplying rapidly because many of them were getting away with illegal slot machine gambling.

But other businesses got swept into the law, like senior arcades, and some larger companies questioned whether they were suddenly law breakers.

So, Representative Jay Trumbull (R-Panama City) sponsored a bill to alleviate the problem.

“House Bill 641 makes changes to update and clarify the law so that businesses who offer skill based amusement games like Chuck E. Cheese, Family Amusement Centers, and Dave & Buster’s are able to continue to operate without fear of running afoul of the 2013 law,” Trumbull told the House.

Representative Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton) says the new bill should reassure those companies because it spells out the kind of amusement games and machines that are allowed and how they should be operated. 

"Due to an ambiguity in the law, a large amusement chain canceled its plans to come to the Tampa Bay area, which could have resulted in millions of dollars of capital invested and hundreds of jobs," Boyd said. He's referring to Dave & Buster’s – which has large arcades and restaurants around Florida and the U.S.

The controversy over Internet cafes ultimately led to the resignation of Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll.Her former public relations firm represented a company that was later indicted on criminal charges relating to Internet cafes.

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