Personal Pool Hall

Lou, you just need to buy the old armory and fill it with 10 ft Diamonds.

St Louis can be the home of the U.S. Open 14.1 and 1pocket

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Balcony seating, plenty of room.
Enough sq footage to set up hotel rooms.

The basement even has drive in parking to conceal all the cars from the cops
 
jcs003 said:
interesting. rent a large climate controlled storage facility with electric bring a tv and radio and your in.haha
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Dirtbmw20 said:
This was my EXACT idea but don't have any climate controlled storage facilities near my house, they are all on the opposite end of town from where I live.
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I doubt seriously that the storage facilities are tolerant enough to allow you to run a business, private or personal club out of their storage facility.
 
Red Shoes said:
One more thing to take into account Lou...Some guys around here (I won't mention names...but good players and gamblers...you would know most of them), did something like that about 15 years ago (4 tables...card tables...etc..) in a strip mall. Well in less than a year, they attracted to attention of the "cops". One of the problems with the "club" thing is that "if" the place is in full operation (say 4 tables) plus a few side line guys, all of a sudden you have 20-25 cars parked out in front...Local "constables" are always interested in things like that because they think something "illegal" is going on inside. They will try to "charge" you with running an unlicensed bar or retail operation without a license. Plus "if" your doing any actual gambling there and they get "wind" of it....there are no shortage of charges they can trump up (generally around election time...every politician wants the "tuff on crime" vote). As a side note: You mean Gail doesn't want to have candlelight dinners on the "fancy eatin table" (aka Beverly Hillbillies)? What if you threw in "Jethro and Ellie Mae"??
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Good points, John. Thanks.

Lou Figueroa
guess calling it
The BaDa Bing!
is out too :-)
 
MoonshineMattK said:
Lou, you just need to buy the old armory and fill it with 10 ft Diamonds.

St Louis can be the home of the U.S. Open 14.1 and 1pocket

IMG00701-20110123-1526.jpg


Balcony seating, plenty of room.
Enough sq footage to set up hotel rooms.

The basement even has drive in parking to conceal all the cars from the cops
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lol. Good idea, Matt.

Lou Figueroa
 
When I played league, there was a team that the members lived about 40 miles from anything resembling a poolhall. And the bar they played out of was charging $1.25 per game.
Two guys rented apartments, another rented a half a house, and the other two owned homes, but none of them had the extra room for a table. But one of the guys worked across the street from a building that the downstairs area was "For Lease" for about six months. So he called on it.

They ended up renting something like a 30x20 office space (with a bathroom :thumbup:), and put a Brunswick, a refrigerator, and a couch and TV in it. The empty space was in a stand alone building by itself, and the upstairs office was being used by the owner for storage of his business records.

The captain of their team told me they were paying something like $175 a month (plus the electric, I think). Between five guys, that's $35 apiece. And they could come and go whenever they wanted.

Not a bad deal...
 
several issues

JoeyA said:
I doubt seriously that the storage facilities are tolerant enough to allow you to run a business, private or personal club out of their storage facility.
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A, Joey is right. Storage facilities are for storage, not businesses or frequent activity. B, they don't offer electricity in the climate controlled storages I have seen and currently use. C, they indeed aren't shaped to acconmodate pool tables. D, you will generate lots of unwanted attention if people start converging on a storage area.

The type of space you need is often offered as warehouse space. More expensive than storage but you can have a small office and electricity and such, plus wider bays are common. A lot of small businesses and racing teams operate out of these.

Probably the best deal is to find a small business with more space than it needs. Renting an area such as one bay of a mechanic shop is often possible for a lump sum a month with all utilities and other costs included. Wall off your area and you are good to go.

Talking about the IRS, if something is a separate building at your home or even better at a separate address they are much more willing to consider it a business. Calling a room in your home a business area is a frequent tax dodge so they have gotten pretty strict about interpretations of what makes it a nonbusiness area. When they come to audit don't have kid's toys, junk, or any personal items in the room. Owning businesses with separate addresses I have never had anyone look twice concerning the legitimacy of my business.



Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
A, Joey is right. Storage facilities are for storage, not businesses or frequent activity. B, they don't offer electricity in the climate controlled storages I have seen and currently use. C, they indeed aren't shaped to acconmodate pool tables. D, you will generate lots of unwanted attention if people start converging on a storage area.

The type of space you need is often offered as warehouse space. More expensive than storage but you can have a small office and electricity and such, plus wider bays are common. A lot of small businesses and racing teams operate out of these.

Probably the best deal is to find a small business with more space than it needs. Renting an area such as one bay of a mechanic shop is often possible for a lump sum a month with all utilities and other costs included. Wall off your area and you are good to go.

Talking about the IRS, if something is a separate building at your home or even better at a separate address they are much more willing to consider it a business. Calling a room in your home a business area is a frequent tax dodge so they have gotten pretty strict about interpretations of what makes it a nonbusiness area. When they come to audit don't have kid's toys, junk, or any personal items in the room. Owning businesses with separate addresses I have never had anyone look twice concerning the legitimacy of my business.

Hu
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Yes, Hu, that's really closer to my original concept -- a small off-site pool hall for the use of myself and maybe a couple other guys. Warehouse space would probably be the way to go. I'm really not looking to start a business, just to have a place to play with perfect equipment and a few amenities.

Lou Figueroa
 
I am in the works of doing something like this. I found store front for rent for $500 a month + eletric that i rented. I am opening a small proshop selling cues and supplies doing repairs. I am putting a 9ft table in as well. Gonna be a part time thing as I work 4 nights a week midnight shift. I am hoping i can make enough a month to cover my rent and have my pro shop/mancave lol. I will be up and running by January
 
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Morgantownfats said:
I am in the works of doing something like this. I found store front for rent for $500 a month + eletric that i rented. I am opening a small proshop selling cues and supplies doing repairs. I am putting a 9ft table in as well. Gonna be a part time thing as I work 4 nights a week midnight shift. I am hoping i can make enough a month to cover my rent and have my pro shop/mancave lol. I will be up and running by January
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It'd be great to see pictures when you're up and running.

Lou Figueroa
 
I live in a townhouse condo on the 2nd floor, overlooking a 400 ft. long pool, right next to the community fitness center. A couple years ago, I noticed the room directly adjacent to my balcony, attached to the fitness center, was fairly large and had been vacant for as long as I could remember...

I called the HOA and I worked out a deal to start renting the space for $100 a month, everything included, with my own key. The room was 16 x 28, carpeted, secure, floor to ceiling windows over top of the pool as well and right next to my unit. I put a nice GC 1 in there and had it for a couple years.

The only problem was that other community residents thought it was for their use also, and the office got a lot of calls about it.... I eventually sold the table as I really had purchased it for my GF to use, not me.. (when she left) :)
 
Wybrook said:
I live in a townhouse condo on the 2nd floor, overlooking a 400 ft. long pool, right next to the community fitness center. A couple years ago, I noticed the room directly adjacent to my balcony, attached to the fitness center, was fairly large and had been vacant for as long as I could remember...

I called the HOA and I worked out a deal to start renting the space for $100 a month, everything included, with my own key. The room was 16 x 28, carpeted, secure, floor to ceiling windows over top of the pool as well and right next to my unit. I put a nice GC 1 in there and had it for a couple years.

The only problem was that other community residents thought it was for their use also, and the office got a lot of calls about it.... I eventually sold the table as I really had purchased it for my GF to use, not me.. (when she left) :)
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One of the things I would worry about -- in a condo/town home environment, would be the noise factor. I mean, the sound of a rack of balls popping open carries quite a distance. In fact, that very sound has led me to pool rooms while walking around foreign cities in Mexico and Europe.

Lou Figueroa
 
kybill9 said:
We have an office in our house. My tax accountant says I can have no personal use items in that room if I want to claim a business deduction. Its easier not to claim it.
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How many times have you had the IRS into your home to check??
 
lfigueroa said:
One of the things I would worry about -- in a condo/town home environment, would be the noise factor. I mean, the sound of a rack of balls popping open carries quite a distance. In fact, that very sound has led me to pool rooms while walking around foreign cities in Mexico and Europe.

Lou Figueroa
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No, It was perfect... It was in a stand-alone building that also holds the Fitness Center upstairs and the Laundry downstairs..

I could stand out on my 2nd story balcony and look directly into the room (40 ft. away) and not hear a thing.. Nice setup :)
 
poolhustler said:
How many times have you had the IRS into your home to check??
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I had to pay an IRS penalty on a small late estimated quarterly payment amount about 25-30 years ago. The experience was sufficiently negative that I would never want to repeat it again. I was never audited. They waited until about a week before the 3 year statute of limitations was up and then hit me with a bill for three years of compounded interest and penalties, even though they had to have known about it when it happened.

The chances of an audit for the scenarios described in this thread are probably 5-10% per year. To me, the potential penalties far outweigh the benefit. Just the stress of perpetrating the scam would make it not worthwhile.
 
Arkansaw

....yeah, yeah, I know it's spelled Arkansas. But there used to be an obscure billiard game called Arkansaw. Anyway, Springdale Arkansas was the home of a good friend and player, John Francis. He was also a good friend of cuemaker Ron Haley. John once told me that some players in Arkansas started their own club like this. But there was some gambling there, and a disgruntled wife who knew about the club reported it to the authorities as an underground gambling operation. Not only was it raided and closed, the tables and other contents were seized as "gambling equipment." Haley or others from Arkansas may know more of the story. But keep this in mind if you are going to make this club happen. If they had made it a truly secret illegal gambling club unknown to wives and girlfriends, it may have continued 'til this day. And wouldn't that be cool? If I did this, I would buy one of those government auctioned former missile silos.....security AND free climate control.....awesome. My secret "password" would be "let me in or I'll shoot you!"...shoot you some pool, that is.
 
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