Sumter County Attorney Jennifer Rey outlined a two-pronged approach Tuesday night to deal with the rapid increase in fish-games arcades and associated criminal activity.
Rey suggested that commissioners impose restrictions on where arcades can be located and require conditional use permits to operate them.
Sixteen arcades operated in the county between the first of the year and late last month. Since Jan. 1, they generated 564 calls for service and 96 arrests. A dozen calls involved drug overdoses and 69 involved narcotics, according to Rey’s report.
The arcades skirt Florida’s gambling laws by offering prizes for video game winners.
A proposed Sumter County ordinance would ban arcades from locating with 2,500 feet of a church, school, child care center, park, playground or library. Arcades also would require conditional use permits to operate, which are granted by the zoning special master after review.
“All of that is an attempt to mitigate some of the criminal activity that is occurring,” Rey said.
Some arcades opened in Sumter County after Marion County cracked down on them earlier this year.
Commissioners strongly endorsed Rey’s proposals.
“I want us to do as much as we possibly can to discourage that type of activity in Sumter County,” said Commissioner Doug Gilpin, who brought the issue before the board of commissioners several months ago.
Commissioner Oren Miller agreed.
“I want to do everything we can to close them down,” he said, noting that a cache of used needles was found outside one arcade. “There is a snowball avalanche.”
