Terrace residents can soon feed the machine

The slots are heading for Terrace. After a one and half hour special session of Terrace City Council, a 4-3 split led to the approval of allowing slot machines to be added at the Lucky Dollar Bingo Palace.

With the vote, Terrace city council deleted Section 4.20 of bylaw 1431-1995, which was passed over ten years ago to keep the slot machines out of the city.

The Bingo centre in Terrace plans to add some 75 machines to their operation, and the City of Terrace will receive a ten percent cut of the take, which BC Lotteries suggest will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 330,000 dollars a year.

Councillors say yes to slots

The Terrace Standard

Thursday, March 13, 2008

City councillors voted 4-3 in favour of allowing slot machines at the Lucky Dollar Bingo Palace during a special meeting at council chambers the evening of March 13.

Councillor Carol Leclerc, who voted against the similar proposal in fall 2006, and who also voted against amending the prohibitive bylaw during this meeting, cast the final vote in favour of slot machines after the hour and a half long meeting.

Councillors Marilyn Davies, Brian Downie, and Dave Pernarowski also voted in favour of the slot machine addition at Lucky Dollar Bingo Palace.

Mayor Jack Talstra and councillors Lynne Christiansen and Brad Pollard voted no to the addition.

The proposal for the addition of slot machines at the Lucky Dollar Bingo Palace only became available after council decided in a 4-3 vote to delete Section 4.20 of bylaw 1431-1995 that prohibited slot machine installation in the city that was made by city council ten years ago.
Councillors Pernarowski, Pollard, Davies, and Downie voted in favour of amending the bylaw to allow slot machines in the city.

Mayor Talstra, Leclerc, and Christiansen voted to retain the prohibitive bylaw.

With the prohibited section of the bylaw deleted and the 4-3 vote in favour of allowing slot machines at the Lucky Dollar Bingo Palace, the city is eligible to receive 10 per cent of the net income generated from the Lucky Dollar’s proposed 75 slot machines, which BC Lottery Corporation’s officials say could be around the neighbourhood of $330,000 a year.