Dewine: ‘Internet cafes’ on the rise
Attorney General Mike Dewine is making his case for lawmakers to regulate storefront gambling parlors by pointing to fresh data on their proliferation.
Field staffers in his office recently counted approximately 280 “Internet cafes” in the state, significantly higher than the 200 estimated by the state lottery just four months ago, he said in an interview yesterday with editorial board.
“Nothing is happening, and they’re just continuing to grow,” the Republican attorney general said.
Dewine has been pushing for legislators to approve a bill — pending for almost a year in the Gop-controlled legislature — to limit the number of sweepstakes parlors, which he thinks should be licensed because they allow gambling.
The businesses have found legal loopholes by selling phone and Internet cards to patrons for use in devices similar to slot machines, Dewine said.
“This is the one gaping hole in the (gambling) system that the legislature has been creating,” he said.
Also yesterday, Dewine said he hopes that the legislature earmarks a portion of casino-tax revenue — designated for law-enforcement training in the state constitution — to the Peace Officer Training Academy in his office and the Office of Criminal Justice Services in the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
He said he wants to take mobile-training units on the road and focus on more individualized training of officers as opposed to making officers travel to the London campus for classes in a time of budget constraints.
“What we want to do with that is take this police training to a much-higher level than it’s ever been in the state of Ohio,” Dewine said. “We think with this money, we can do it.”
Local law-enforcement groups, however, are opposing the proposal to give 85 percent of the training money to the academy and 15 percent to the state public-safety department as part of Gov. John Kasich’s midbiennium budget review. They say that’s hijacking the intent of voters for the money to go directly to local departments.