PL MINUTES 09151987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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S1 Gene Winstead said he was Operations Manager for American Amusement 2 Arcades; 3 said he was also Vice Chairman of the Bloomington Planning 4 Commission as well as the President of the Bloomington Crime 5 Prevention Association and understood the City' s concerns about car 6 prowls and vandalism in parking lots; 7 said there isn' t a shopping mall in the metropolitan area that 8 doesn' t experience the same type of problems; 9 indicated he didn' t know just how directly these activities were 10 connected to youth activities; 11 said his organization was not so naive as to believe none of the 12 "bad seeds" frequent their establishments or attempt to come in; 13 said they have spent time with managers to identify problems which 14 occur. 15 Werenicz agreed car prowling problems occur where there are large 16 numbers of cars parked in lots and said he perceived that to locate 17 this type of business near the area where large numbers of cars are 18 parked near the access to both the bowling alley and the bar 19 would just be adding a third source of congregation. &0 Winstead agreed there would be an older crowd frequenting the 21 arcade later at night, but challenged the perception that problems 22 with the congregation could be directly connected to the arcade. 23 Werenicz responded to Mr. Winstead' s statement that in Bloomington 24 the number of car parking problems in parking lots had been cut 25 down by the actions of business crime watch groups by saying he 26 had found through the surveys he had taken of the eight communities 27 where this business had establishments, that the number of instan- 28 ces had been cut down after either those arcades had hired off-duty 29 police or the hours of operation had been reduced to the hours the 30 mall was open; 31 said he had also noted the malls which had kept to the mall hours 32 didn' t seem to have pool tables in them. 33 Winstead pointed out that one of the reasons his company wanted 34 to have pool tables at this location had been because they needed 35 them to fill up the space which resulted from only 34 device 36 licenses being available to them; 37 added that there had been a great resurgence of interest for all 38 ages in pool the past few years; 39 indicated the pool tables would be somewhat smaller than full scale •40 tables and would be easier for younger children to play. 16