Aug 13th 2010 By Emerald Catron

Anti-Pinball Law Shuts Down N.Y. Arcade

Lawyers for the town Beacon, NY, found an old law on the books that said pinball machines are against the law. Now, they're using it to shut down a retro arcade museum that has had a few too many noise complaints.

No pinball?! Oh GAWD, it's like "Footloose" -- except we actually care about what's being banned.

Apparently pinball was outlawed in most of the country's major cities for a large chunk of the 20th century because politicians thought arcades were mafia-run rackets. And you thought Chuck E. Cheese was just a guy in a mouse suit.

The mayor has said that he wants to help the arcade stay in business, but, for now, since people are complaining and there's a law against it, there's nothing he can do to remedy the situation.

See video of the amazing vintage electro-mechanical machines at the arcade, as well as CNN's incredibly overblown emotional portrayal of the situation after the jump.

Tags: anti-pinball law - arcade - Beacon - cnn - NY - pinball

Email This

Comments:

Add a comment

Friday 13 August

By KrazyCalvin

Highest Rank

So apparently somebody doesn't know the storied history of Pinball as a pasttime. It started out as a gambling machine in the 1800s that you would see along side slot machines. The idea was to use your skill to win money... now its to win free games.

Friday 13 August

By steven

Highest Rank

the pinball hall of fame in las vegas on trop and spencer across from the liberace museum is doing just fine, tim arnold has about 300 machines in there. he has over 1000 and rotates em

Saturday 14 August

By Gaylord Wilson

Highest Rank

In New Orleans the revenue from pinball machines helped finance many restaurants, small grocery stores and bars. I know that without those machines we would not have been able to purchase the family restaurant and bar that we ran successfully for many years. Thank you Tac Amusement.

Monday 16 August

By DUCK!

Neutral

The anti pinball law was in affect as of 1942 due to the fact it was considered a type of gambling but that law was lifted between 1973-1976 so the law therefore is no longer in existance and the arcade/museum should be re-opened this is just another stupid F***ing thing that New York has applied to working class citizens and business owners

Friday 13 August

By Takahashi

Highest Rank

The reason why there are so many laws on the books against pinball isn't because of arcades being synonymous with gang hang-outs, it more has to do with gambling. When pinball was reaching its fame in the late 30's and really making a breath through, many of the large manufacturers such as Bally's made the decision to compete directly against slot machines, a decision they would soon regret. Throughout the 40's and 50's laws were passed all over the nation against pinball of all sorts, and continued to be enforced even after the days after production stopped from "gambling" machines. This however didn't matter to most cities, as they saw the "free play" as sort of a gamble (a game has value that you can win via play). Even in Chicago the founding place of pinball had it outlawed up until the mid-70's (I believe it was 1973). Other cities since have slowly lifted this ban, around the 70's and 80's when pinball fever took hold once more! Alas, there still several cities who have not make a change to the law, as there really wasn't a need too.

We have the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, a pinball museum and arcade, it's a wonderful place with pretty much every great machine (and some extremely rare ones) from the entire history of pinball. I really hope this thing in NY gets sorted out, I'd love to see more retro arcades/pinball halls pop up around the nation so that everyone can enjoy the classic pinball experience.

Saturday 14 August

By KrazyCalvin

Neutral

The pinball hall of fame was amazing! For some reason my damn phone deleted some pictures that I took there but I loved the vertical machine where you had to guide it through the maze. I beat my brother to a higher level but I didnt make it to the top.

Friday 13 August

By joe

Highest Rank

These people are crazy ,what next ? Hang on were on a ride,soon it will be a life or death situation !!

Saturday 14 August

By sprint

Highest Rank

I used to live in S.C. and things like this are usually te result of the church ladies trying to control people. The politicians know people don't want to go against them because some how people think that is like going against God and motherhood. They are against pinball, pool, and everything else. Where I used to live they closed the discos, massage parlors, and made id against the law for female vendors to wear halter tops.

Friday 13 August

By Jim

Highest Rank

What a load of crap! I met my wife in 1981 at an arcade called "Starworld" in Portage, Michigan. That was the place for teenagers to go and meet or hang-out with other teens. It was a great time and place. These jerks trying to close down arcades need a hobby instead of screwing with something that is, in this day and age, relatively harmless. They need to go smoke a joint and mellow out.

Friday 13 August

By conrad

Highest Rank

Wow! Small world Jim.
I remember Starworld. Big place... think it was the A&P,
High Wheeler Ice Cream before that. LOL maybe they outlawed ice cream and grocieries before that!
Outlaw PINBALL! REALLY

Friday 13 August

By Mike

Highest Rank

This mayor said he had no choice because noise complaints were filed. This exposes another major problem in the U.S. these days.

Far too many people like to make all the noise they want then complain when someone else makes any noise. As a musician I have seen this many times.
A perfect example is the numerous times I have lived places and had neighbors who thought nothing of blasting their rap / hip hop music either in their home or the cars that "Thump" so loud. Yet every time I would practice playing guitar & actually be doing something constructive not just merely listening to music these same neighbors would complain about the noise because I was playing rock music and not their rap/ hip hop garbage.

Even worse is when you have an existing noise producer and new people move into that neighborhood and all of a sudden expect quiet when they knew they were fully aware of the situation before they moved in.
Perfect example of this situation is in the city of Allentown at the Fair Grounds. The Fair Grounds were there for 200 years almost which is long before the hospital was built across the street and definitely way before any of the people living in the houses around it lived there. Yet the hospital just keeps taking over more & more of the Fair Grounds land then complains about the noise and the stupid neighbors knew the Fair Grounds were there when they moved in, but after they live there they complain about the noise of the fair. The fair is for one week a year & they knew it was there before they moved in.

What needs to be done is to make laws addressing those who make noise complaints as a way to harass others they do not like. This has become a MAJOR problem in the U.S. Maybe if these harassers who make noise complaints to harass others were thrown in jail for 30 days for harassment they would wise up & stop being azzholes!

Friday 13 August

By BROKEN6STRING

Highest Rank

MIKE....That was very well stated. THe opposite occurred here in Yonkers. New folks moved in two houses away and the "rap'crap" goes on until sometimes 1:00am. I have two (EL-34 based) 100 watt marshal stacks and an Ampeg VT-22 (100 WATTER) I am so tempted to crank em' up in their direction.

Friday 13 August

By JDen1952

Highest Rank

I'd like to throw in a tidbit, if I may. Dulles Airport in Washington DC was built far away from the city in a wide-open area with no homes nearby. Over the years, people started building homes near the airport. And now they complain about the noise. Here's a tidbit of common sense... THE AIRPORT WAS THERE FIRST!

Friday 13 August

By Cooper

Highest Rank

I'm with you, Mike, and with JDen and Broken6String. It's total bullsh*t for people to build their little McMansions right beside a local airstrip and then raise cane about the airplane noise! B6S - you SHOULD fire up your Marshalls. I'm installing rear-facing and side-facing outdoor speakers on my '84 Blazer; with a power amp and a CD of bagpipe music, I plan to counter-crank any rap/hip-hoppers who are stupid enough to get near me. (Bass may carry, but bagpipes penetrate!)

Monday 23 August

By Charlie

Neutral

that's nothing jden, here in Harrisburg (I'm assuming all throughout the state of Pennsylvania as well) everyone living by the interstate's kept complaining about the noise. So they decided to build soundproof barriers to keep the noise down, the problem is that it doesn't do a whole lot. It doesn't look to nice either.

Friday 13 August

By Andy

Highest Rank

Becon is a beautiful sleepy town that needs the business desperatly. I don't see wy they are driving a small shop from their main st. there are quite a number of boarded up buildings.

Sunday 15 August

By Chris

Neutral

Hey Andy, no kidding about it being small. I used to live there until almost 2 years ago. I used to walk the whole town when needed to do something even walked to Southern Dutchess Bowl.

And yes the 12508 in my name is in honor of Beacon.

Friday 13 August

By Tom

Highest Rank

When I was growing up on the East Coast, my family drove down to Florida for the two week school vacation. When my Dad got a beautiful 5th wheel camper, we learned the ins and outs of staying at campgrounds with pull-through sites, electricity and water. As the only child on all 18 of these trips, I honestly don't know what I would have done if the 'Rec-Rooms' at these campgrounds didn't have pinball machines. At the time, to me, it seemed as if they were invented for children. I am nearly 49 years old now and I could never get into video games, preferring the live 'action' gravity-devised creatively themed games. I knew they HAD to be for kids when we found ourselves in Las Vegas. I was 15 and almost all the casino resorts had incredible non-gambling areas with games for children. Nearly ALL of them PIN-BALL machines. As an adult, I've never seen a pinball machine used for gambling anywhere in the United States. Then I learned about the history of Pachinko, a very space-conscious completely upright machine where there wasn't any flippers and you coulnd't even play by skill. I understand they were gaming machines, but for God's sake, saying Pin-ball machines should be outlawed is like FORCING children into the much more addictive video games--especially the home ones which don't cost anything to play. Video games supply ample doses of VIOLENCE, increase prejudices and put stress on what could be a teenager already on a downward path to even more hours at the game (often VERY LOUD--louder than a Pin-ball machine ever gets)including days skipped from school and less interest in homework. It is an exclusionary, hermit-inducing way to live. At least to play Pin-ball, a person has to go out to places where they have them and INTERACT with other people. It seems to me, anyone against Pin-ball is PRO 'problem child.' What a backwards world we live in today. I find this debate simply outrageous.

Friday 13 August

By Lips

Highest Rank

WHat next Build a Mosque close to Ground Zero and shut down Pinball. Good Grief does anyone see any logic here. Leave pinball alone and say no to the Mosque...................

Friday 13 August

By Rex Lewellen

Highest Rank

There are so many laws, OLD REALLY OLD, their is a law in Wichita, Kansas that if you are driving a automobile when you get to the intersections of Bradway and Douglas ( the center of downtown ) that you must stop at that time and fire you pistol in the air three times before proceding. Do they still enforce that one, or is this just a cast of selective enforcement.