Quoted from ryanbrooks:Jukeboxes should not be a no go because of mobile app capabilities. Operators can simply remove the stackers so no one can use the touchscreen interface.
I’m a lifelong operator. Born into. Live it. Will die from it. I’m also the president of my states coin-op association. If we were faced with a similar mandate, I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole and I’d urge everyone in our group to follow. Nothing good can come of this lawsuit. Bad publicity from public outcry and media opinions plus you’re now the group filing suit against the same entities which you wish to influence and lobby for future issues. Governors, mayors, members of the legislature and city council members remember these things.
Also, what’s litigation going to cost? How long will said suit take? Filings are most likely at an all time high due to a log dam from the shutdown. Will the recouped revenues generated offset the cost of the suit?
There’s two sides to every argument. I try to always look at both. It’s easy when you’re on the outside looking in. I only know the side of the operators here, so I won’t argue for either side right now.
I will say this, we pay an annual amount for our sales tax. It’s a decal in lieu of sales tax. We prepay our sales tax in afores. All other sales tax is paid in arears. Due to the shutdown, we lost over 2 months of our prepaid tax period. Our decal amount is most likely to be raised this upcoming legislative session, when the state Congress is desperately trying to fill the budget shortfall. We have not filed any motion for compensation of the lost prepaid tax period because we (our association) will use this fact as a point of emphasis when we work to defeat such legislation.
I agree on the jukeboxes. As an operator myself, keeping my jukes up and running would be my biggest priority. I already plan on disabling the bill acceptors on all my jukes. Phone app sales already account for 70% or more of my sales. Whoever came up with that list must not know about jukes being pretty much touchless now and needs to be educated. Filing a lawsuit is going to delay all games including jukes for much longer. A simple call to whoever is your lobbyist would clear that up quickly.