BY PATRICK GUINANE, Times of Northwest Indiana
pguinane@nwitimes.com
INDIANAPOLIS | Tasty pork tenderloins, ice cold beer and succulent chicken wings aren't enough anymore to attract the average Joe and Jane, tavern keepers told state lawmakers Thursday.
The bar owners want what veterans clubs got last year: The right to offer pull tabs, punch boards, raffles and other forms of low-stakes gambling.
"I would like everyone to remember that we for-profits do compete with the nonprofits on a daily basis," said Don Marquardt, president of the Indiana License Beverage Association. "Gambling has been in bars well before Indiana's (casino) riverboats and the Hoosier Lottery. This has not been a moral issue for Indiana for the last 20 years but rather an issue of who may profit and where will it be located."
Marquardt, who owns Timber's Casual Dining and Lounge in Angola, went on to tell the Senate Appropriations Committee that stiffer drunken driving laws and local smoking bans are putting a financial hurt on bars and taverns.
Another blow to liquor-pouring establishments was struck last year, he said, when Indiana outlawed video poker machines and electronic slots. Before that, bars could have the machines but weren't allowed to pay out.
But the 2007 state law banning those electronic games also gave American Legions and other nonprofits permission to sell paper games of chance any time, day or night.
State Sen. Jim Arnold, a former LaPorte County sheriff, is co-sponsoring the current push to expand those rights to every corner tap.
"If you want to go into a tavern, that's your call," said Arnold, D-LaPorte. "If you want to go in there and play a punch board, that should be your call as well. Nobody puts a gun to anyone's head and makes them gamble."
The legislation, House Bill 1153, cleared the House 62-36 last week. The vote followed an amplified debate in which one lawmaker urged colleagues to resist further expansion of what he said has become the "crack cocaine of public policy."
State Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond, didn't resort to such superlatives. But after Thursday's lengthy committee hearing, Mrvan said he's a little squeamish about making gambling so ubiquitous.
"It makes me a little nervous expanding gaming that much," Mrvan said. "I have sympathy for the tavern keepers. But it would say every tavern -- that's one on almost every corner, every three blocks -- is going to be able to sell pull tabs."