Prohibition of amusement games in establishments challenged

Another lawsuit has been filed against Ohio Health Director Amy Acton in Lake County Common Pleas Court. Twenty businesses across the state, including Willoughby’s Garage Bar, have filed a suit challenging the Ohio Health Department’s prohibition of amusement games in bars, restaurants and bowling alleys under the state’s reopening plan from the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Amusement games include billiards, pinball, video and arcade games. The lawsuit filed by Akron-based Stark & Noll Co. LPA argues that the order was issued by the Ohio Department of Health “without any basis to support the conclusion that the patrons of bars, restaurants and bowling alleys cannot safely participate in such games.” The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to prohibit Acton and those who enforce the health department’s orders from imposing penalties to those businesses as long as they adhere to safety regulations. The lawsuit states that the order violates the plaintiffs’ rights under the Ohio Constitution to conduct their legitimate businesses. The suit further argues that as a direct and proximate result of the order, the plaintiffs face “imminent risk of losing their businesses, their livelihoods, and economic security, of being criminally prosecuted and suffering irreparable harm to their rights as citizens of the state of Ohio to be treated equally under the law, to receive due process and to be protected from arbitrary conduct of an unelected official in whom virtually all powers of government, legislative and executive, have been singularly and unlawfully reposed.” “Defendants have made no showing that games offered by plaintiffs cannot be conducted in a manner that complies with spacing standards and sanitizing standards recommended by defendants,” the lawsuit states. Attorneys for the plaintiffs also argue that Acton’s orders “are even more constitutionally suspect because it exempts state-supported lottery kiosks found in bars and bowling alleys. Also named as defendants in the suit are Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and the Lake County General Health District, which enforces the health directives in the county. Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. O’Donnell has been assigned the case. The lawsuit was filed shortly before 5 p.m. May 20, hours after another Lake County judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing gyms to reopen immediately. Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge Eugene A. Lucci ruled in favor of the 35 gyms across the state that filed a suit against Acton, prohibiting her and those responsible for enforcing her directives from “imposing or enforcing penalties solely for non-compliance with the director’s order” against gyms and fitness centers, “so long as they operate in compliance with all applicable safety regulations, whether those in the state’s order, the state’s supplemental guidelines governing businesses like those of the plaintiffs in this case.” Lucci wrote that Acton has “acted in an impermissible arbitrary, unreasonable and oppressive manner without procedural safeguards.” “(Acton) has quarantined the entire people of the state of Ohio for much more than 14 days,” Lucci wrote. “The director has no statutory authority to close all businesses including plaintiffs’ gyms, which she deems non-essential for a period of two months.” Following Lucci’s order, a Ohio Department of Health spokesperson said they are reviewing the ruling with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office regarding further legal steps.