ROBESONIA, Pa. \u2014 At a local restaurant in Berks County, workers guide a skill machine through the dining room, out the door, and into the truck.<\/p>\n
For operator Candace Dillon, it is one of about 30 locations she has cleared ahead of the deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust upset, disappointment, because they can\u2019t agree,\u201d Dillon said. \u201cI mean, Pa. has been trying to get them regulated since 2014, and they just can\u2019t come to an agreement on a fair tax amount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, two empty spaces remain inside the Henry P. Robeson House, a historic restaurant in Robesonia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been open for about three and a half years,\u201d said restaurant owner Duane Putt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had the skill machines in with Candy since the day we\u2019ve opened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putt said the machines were not the center of his business, but for a small restaurant, even a smaller stream of income made a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t get played here quite as hard and heavy as they do at some of your fire companies and VFWs and things,\u201d Putt said. \u201cNonetheless, in these trying economic times, when you\u2019re trying to be a small-business owner, every couple of bucks in your pocket counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday, those extra dollars rolled out the door.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the games are slot machines and illegal outside licensed casinos and qualifying truck stops.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy initial reaction was I was hoping that in the 11th hour they\u2019d get something \u2014 an agreement hammered out,\u201d Putt said.<\/p>\n
That agreement never came.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania State Police said simply unplugging them is not enough. Enforcement begins Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s still a pretty good fight to go,\u201d Dillon said. \u201cBut we\u2019re not done. We\u2019re going to keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROBESONIA, Pa. \u2014 At a local restaurant in Berks County, workers guide a skill machine through the dining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[7356,28,128,130,129,14251,976,1979,34280,2918,5018],"class_list":["post-305522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-enforcement","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-regulation","tag-restaurant","tag-skill-games","tag-slot-machines","tag-small-business","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}