CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Nueces County Game Room Ordinance has proved to be a powerful tool to deter illegal gambling in our area, but now, lawmen are looking to change some of the verbiage to make it even harder for those businesses to operate.
Nueces County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy David Cook said while the game room ordinance has helped lower the number of game rooms in our area, there are still areas of that ordinance he wants to bolster.
"What I would like to see in the ordinance is once there is an indictment for illegal gambling we can suspend the permit pending the outcome of the criminal charges," he said.
Cook said that any type of change to the ordinance will require a streamlined process.
"A conversation I need to have with the county's attorney's office," he said. "Let them research it if they think it's viable. We'll submit that change to the commissioner's court."
Bishop Police Chief Edward Day said there are things he would like to see added to the ordinance as well, including clarity when it comes to operating hours.
"Maybe limiting the amount of operations that can occur in a week, things like that," he said. "That way these establishments aren't operating 24/7 all throughout the night."
Day said that before the ordinance, Bishop saw high amounts of game room activity.
"We had about nine operating game rooms, which was a lot for us," he said.
That number is now zero.
Cook said he is seeing similar results with at the Corpus Christi Police Department.
"They had over 100 game rooms in Corpus Christi and now they think it's closer to 50 now," he said.