After months of back-and-forth at City Hall, San Jose’s City Council has signed off on a major rules reset for the city’s two card rooms, voting unanimously on Tuesday to loosen several local regulations while keeping oversight in place. The package of five ordinance changes is pitched as a way to cut outdated red tape that supporters say has not kept pace with how the gaming industry actually operates.
The unanimous vote came with Mayor Matt Mahan absent, according to San José Spotlight. Kirill Yermanov, gaming administrator with the San Jose Police Department’s Division of Gaming Control, told the outlet that the division of gaming control will continue to ensure the integrity of gaming operations and safeguard public welfare, a nod to concerns that lightening the rules might weaken oversight.
What changed
The new ordinance package makes a handful of specific adjustments that card room operators have been pushing for:
- It removes the cap on how many tournaments local card rooms can run each year.
- It doubles the maximum number of betting “squares” allowed on tables, from 10 to 20.
- It gives operators more time to report suspected illegal activity.
- It repeals a 20-hour continuous-presence limit that was meant to keep patrons from hanging around for extremely long stretches.
- It lets card rooms offer complimentary or discounted food and nonalcoholic drinks to patrons.
Those specific changes were detailed in coverage republished by SFGATE.
Earlier steps and the fiscal case…