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Relic law racking up pool sites
Bars with billiard tables behind 8-ball
BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Monday, June 4th 2007, 4:00 AM
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Ya got trouble, right here in River City!
With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for pool.
"The Music Man"
An old city law regulating pool halls is getting smacked around at City Hall.
The law was enacted nearly a century ago, when there was an overabundance of pool halls that sanctioned trouble, with a capital "T," as Prof. Harold Hill would sing on a Broadway stage.
Times have changed, but the definition of what constitutes a pool hall in New York City hasn't.
But that could change soon, according to a hearing last week by the City Council's Committee on Consumer Affairs.
A section of the city's comprehensive Administrative Code requires enterprises that offer more than one billiard or pocket billiard table for public use to get a billiard license, currently obtained from the Department of Consumer Affairs.
The licensing fee is modest - $340 every two years for the first table, plus $40 for each additional table.
However, the license comes with a slew of red tape, admonitions and prohibitions - from zoning restrictions to banning those under 16, disorderly conduct and drug sale or use.
Such regulatory headaches may be worth it for the 85 remaining pool halls in the city that have multiple tables.
Now, however, the billiard law is also being applied to bars, taverns and restaurants that offer more than one coin-operated pool table to their customers.
"We shouldn't be under this law," wailed lawyer Cary David Kessler in making the case for the Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York, a lobbying group for providers and users of coin-operated amusements, including pool tables.
Kessler and Allen Weisberg, a Bronx pool hall owner and an officer of the amusement association, urged Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), chairman of the Consumer Affairs Committee, to drop licensing requirements entirely for coin-operated pool tables.
So far, the Council is considering a bill to merely raise the two-table threshold for a billiard license to three tables. But Comrie said he would consider further changes before a final bill is enacted, perhaps this month.
During his testimony, Weisberg, who owns a 32-table pool hall on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, said the image of gambling going on in pool halls is "a mystique."
"I've never seen gambling take place when someone [is] playing a billiard table in a billiard hall or in a bar or restaurant," he testified.
An incredulous Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) told Weisberg his statement was "hard to believe," and challenged him to visit his Flushing district.
"I'd be happy to take you to a few of the bars that actually have pool tables in them, and how much do you want to make a bet that there's betting going on?" Liu said.
