Several municipalities are planning to establish gambling-free areas / Article

The flagship of local governments in the fight against gambling halls is Ķekava region. However, other municipalities are ready to follow their example. In the next row – Salaspils, which also wants to restrict gambling halls in its territory. However, the people of Salaspils have learned from the experience of Ķekava and have chosen more cunning tactics.

Ķekava wants to simply ban gambling halls throughout the county with one decision. MEPRD stopped this idea, explaining that it is necessary to assess the suitability of each territory.

The case is currently before the Constitutional Court. Therefore, Salaspils acts in accordance with the objections of the Ministry – by determining in the local planning separate territories where gambling halls will not be located in the future.

Raimonds Čudars, Chairman of Salaspils County Council (JV), revealed: “These areas are associated with a dense population, with a small number of minors in certain places near educational, cultural institutions and natural monuments. It is in fact defined as areas that will be free from gambling in the future.”

Currently, there are four gaming halls in Salaspils and they are all located in this red area, where gambling is planned to be banned. The municipality believes that removing them from the center would make Salaspils more family-friendly.

In the public consultation, the majority of the population supported the municipal initiative. Also the islanders who met Panorama do not want a gaming hall next door.

A similar mood is observed in Ādaži, where more than 90% of respondents in the municipal survey said “no” to gambling in their region. Currently, there is only one gaming hall in Ādaži and, by the way, it is located in a very special place on the Tallinn highway – in a historic and legendary building, where the first pizzeria in Soviet Latvia was built in the late 1980s.

Ādaži County Council would rather see a pizzeria, a cafeteria or a shop in these premises again. Therefore, it had already included in its agenda a decision to ban gambling throughout the county. However, a few hours before this meeting, Minister Plešs of the MEPRD suspended the initiative of Ķekava.

Māris Sprindžuks, a representative of Ādaži County Council, remembers: “On that day we are embarrassed – how are we? We postponed this decision to the next council meeting to study the position and justification of the MEPRD.”

Currently, Ādaži is facing a dilemma – to go along the Ķekava road with a full ban or the Salaspils road with the separation of separate territories. The mayor of the county believes that it would be useless, bureaucratic, for multicentre municipalities to separate the permitted and unauthorized territories.

“What the law imposes – I would call it a complete mess, is that the municipality has to draw up spatial plans, where it is necessary to determine the places where it is not allowed and where it is allowed. at the old factory in Ogre. I think it’s a mess, it’s a mockery of the people for democracy! ” says Sprinduk.

The gambling industry is also following developments in municipalities. Its representatives warn that simply closing the gaming halls will even increase the social risks, as gamblers will look for these illegal places of entertainment. Arnis Vērzemnieks, a representative of the Latvian Gaming Business Association, explains: “Pragmatically, everyone understands that such an entertainment industry exists, she exists, she is needed, she is needed legally, even under strict supervision, but with a logical, normal regulation.”

Municipalities also have no economic basis for maintaining gaming halls. Approximately, each gaming hall brings about 5,000 euros a year to the municipality and creates five jobs. Locations receive a portion of the gambling tax, but it is negligible. Previously, the distribution was 75% for the state and 25% for local governments, but after the amendments of 2019, the state retains 95% of the tax, allocating 5% to local governments. And soon after these changes, municipalities also began fighting gaming halls.

CONTEXT:

Chairman of Kekava County Council Juris Žilko (“Growth”) in advance spokethat extends the decision suspend the binding regulations of the local government a further ban on the organization of gambling must be challenged in ST.

There is only one gaming hall in the territory of Ķekava district, which was closed during the pandemic. However, in the opinion of the municipality – one is more than enough. Therefore At the beginning of September, Ķekava County Council banned the establishment of gambling sites in its territory. However, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development suspended the municipal ban.

The Ministry, evaluating the regulations of the municipality, concluded that the municipality had violated its powers, had not assessed the existing situation, had not reflected the prohibition in the spatial planning documents and had not substantiated the restrictions in essence.

Kekava municipality was the first Latvian municipality to use the authorization given to local governments by the amendments to the Law on Gambling and Lotteries adopted on 15 April this year to issue binding regulations determining the places and territories where gambling is not permitted.

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