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Florida House Passes Bill To Ban "Internet Cafes"
squiggleslash writes "Concerned about their use as fronts for gambling operations, the Florida legislature passed a law banning Internet cafes. The law appears to be a reaction in part to the recent stepping down of Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, embroiled in a scandal involving a company that operates Internet Cafes. More ordinary cafes with Wi-fi, where you supply your own computer (such as Starbucks), are not affected by the ban." The nomenclature here is confusing; the bill (PDF) (summary) is clearly aimed only at "cafes" that are essentially gambling venues; an Internet cafe wouldn't violate the proposed rule merely by providing computers. Whatever you think of prohibitions on gambling among consenting adults, the bill itself is sort of amusing for its very specific loopholes for bingo and "reverse vending machines."
If gambling is already illegal...why do they need another law? Perhaps they need to fix their gambling statute instead.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
These places aren't about internet access at all, they are plain and simple gambling establishments.
If you want to legalize gambling, fine, do it. But, letting it happen this way just leads to sad little strip-mall locations where poor people gather to lose what little money they have in the name of "entertainment."
this, like most laws, clarifies and expands on an existing statute... so, essentially, they're doing exactly what you propose.
I'm not a huge fan of banning something for everyone because a minority of miscreants are incapable of using it responsibly. The lawmakers, in their seemingly endless struggle to legislate every hot button topic that reaches the news feeds, make themselves and their silly rules less relevant with each new weighty tome of regulations. It's not that human kind has moved beyond the need for codes of conduct, far from it, but once everything is against the law we are all lawbreakers.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I thought the reason Carroll stepped down was because of her connection with Allied Veterans, the supposed charity for veterans that turned out to be a huge scam?
I'm not a huge fan of banning something for everyone because a minority of miscreants are incapable of using it responsibly.
Pollution laws? Money laundering laws? Driving laws? Building codes? Product liability laws? Noise ordinances?
The miscreants are not as small of a minority as you think.
Hell, laws against public drunkenness precede the founding of the USA.
but once everything is against the law we are all lawbreakers.
This won't be a problem until enforcement catches up with the law.
Once that happens, public backlash tends to get laws rolled back.
Red light cameras are a great example of over enforcement leading to massive pushback.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
What I don't get is why the USA is so uptight about "gambling"? If they were really serious about getting rid of big-time gambling operations, they really should ban the stock market and insurance.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
So their logic is that because something could be 'abused' (laws against Internet gambling are idiotic as well), we should ban it entirely? I guess we should ban... everything in existence!
Let's see. A STATE GOVERNMENT official is involved in a criminal operation that involves cyber-cafes. So the STATE's response is to ban the cyber-cafe's!. Yup. Makes perfect sense.
They had to make a lot of noise about it because the lieutenant governor and a trashy company got caught screwing veterans. This was for the "someone should do something about that" crowd.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
which, for the poor, this type of business is useful and helpful. So it must be an attack on the poor.
Regardless of if you can gamble at an Internet cafe, the business serves other uses.
It's like banning car rental places because some people use cars to commit crimes.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Yes. Allied Veterans was running Internet Cafes and claiming the profits were going to veterans.
Banning gambling is pretty useless in Florida. We have many casinos already on reservations, and there are always the boat casinos going out into international waters.
In the past election there was a bill to allow gambling in the county. I don't know how it went, but places to gamble are not hard to find.
most poor people end up working a hell of a lot harder than "non-poor". Falling under the poverty line and living paycheck to paycheck doesn't mean you're not poor.
They're using their grammar skills there.