Monday, 17 September 2007

Nothin' so lonesome as a pub with no pokies, The Australian, 17 September, 2007.


Nothin' so lonesome as a pub with no pokies: [2 All-round First Edition]

Stapleton, JohnThe Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 17 Sep 2007: 7.
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Unbeknown to the Scuttis, the legislation passed by the NSW parliament in 2001 meant the poker machine entitlements adhered to the licensee of a hotel rather than to the landlord. In many cases, including the Scuttis, those entitlements were worth more than the hotel itself.
"We bought the hotel with four machines and now we have none," she said. "To buy them back would cost us $800,000. If city pubs can't survive without poker machines, how do they think we in the country can?"
Gino Scutti said the pub acted as the town's only social centre and if they were forced to close their doors it would be devastating. "The Government gave out the poker machine entitlements to hotels so they could survive and it has had the opposite effect," he said. "It is killing us. It's a bloody mess."

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