Ohio Cops Confiscate Legal Gambling Machine and $20,000 From Business
The Police Department in Dayton Ohio has made national news before, when they stopped hiring police officers with high IQ and high entrance test scores. Now the same department is making news after they raided a business for having a legal gambling machine.
A Dayton neighborhood market says it was the target of a raid that never should have happened. The Belmont Market on Watervliet Avenue in Dayton was raided Monday May 4 when Dayton cops confiscated a gambling machine and $20,000 from the store while investigating possible illegal gambling.
We have now confirmed that the slot machine is perfectly legal. It is registered with the state as a charitable machine raising money legally
The market’s attorney, Jon Paul Rion says in the three hours the store was shut down, the business lost money.
“If its determined the data was not accurate and the police were reckless, then this investigation will take a different tone” said Jon Paul Rion, Belmont Market attorney.
We asked police why they pulled the machine. Officers claimed that the owners did not have the proper paperwork readily available identifying the machine. They claimed that the state license for the machine must be posted in a public place, but they did not cite the law behind this requirement. The cops conducting the raid say they did not find it that day and the owners could not produce it, so they took the machine and the cash found.
The Belmont Market owners have proved the machines are properly documented with the state and resident Dan McQuiston hopes police are held accountable for their mistake.
“It just seems like things happen and they (the police) don’t necessarily get the consequences pushed upon them” said Dan McQuiston, Belmont Market patron.
On May 4, the Dayto Police Department made public news announcing that they “successfully shut down an illegal gambling operation,” but today the machine and the cash were returned to the business.
No official apology was made to the public and no other explanation was provided from the Dayton Police Department.
