lee.noble@heraldbulletin.com

About 80 members or representatives of the Madison County Tavern Owners Association met Thursday at The Three Pigs Restaurant and Lounge at West 29th and Noble streets in Anderson to discuss new gambling laws.

Two Indiana excise officers and one gaming commission representative addressed the tavern owners, informing them about what’s legal and what isn’t. Sen. Tim Lanane was on hand to answer questions pertaining to the state’s legislative changes, which take effect July 1.

Sherry Wood-Watson, president of the tavern owners association, said, “We had questions for them, because under the new laws, we have the casino there at the racetrack. What is that going to do to us?”

Among the concerns expressed by tavern owners were regulations on charitable gaming, Texas Hold’em and other card games, pull-tabs and gaming machines, and what consequences violators would face.

“We’re just kind of concerned about what, legally, we are going to be able to do, if anything,” Wood-Watson said. “This was sort of an emergency meeting before the first of July.”

On July 1, new legislation will take effect, “giving teeth,” in Lanane’s words spoken shortly after the meeting, to age-old regulations on gaming.

The language in the new legislation makes necessary, not just possible, the enforcement of gambling laws that were already on the books, according to Lanane.

“Keep in mind, those dailies, weeklies, monthlies, pull-tabs, have always been illegal. No one should have been doing that,” said Brenda Scott, primary enforcement officer for Madison County’s branch of the state excise police.

Jack Surface, owner of The Northwest Watering Hole and Big Slick’s Texas Hold’em Club in Chesterfield, said he’s decided to trade his poker tables for more dining tables in order to stay legal.

Scott said any game in which a customer puts money at risk is illegal, whether it’s as seemingly harmless as a coin push machine, or as controversial as cherry masters, the machines that got John Neal, the alleged head of an extensive organized gambling operation in the area, in trouble last fall.

Jane Miller, owner of Miller’s Bar in Anderson, said she doesn’t think the legislators, or for that matter the enforcement arms of the government, such as the excise police, realize the extent to which their actions hurt local business.

“I want to ask if they realize they’re going to be putting more people out of work and on welfare, because all we do is supply jobs,” Miller said. “All that gambling money goes to pay taxes and wages, and we only take a little bit off the top.”

As for why the laws weren’t enforced consistently in the past, Scott said that law enforcement was focusing on other more important issues, but did not clarify which ones.

Toward the end of the informal meeting, one man in the crowd raised his hand and spoke up, saying he was afraid that half of the tavern owners in the state would be out of business by this time next year because they depend so much on gambling revenue, whether directly, or indirectly, through increased food and beverage sales that come on game nights.