The Bridgeport City Council Monday discussed a city ordinance regarding the regulation of pool and billiard halls in conjunction with 47 Gourmet Sandwiches’ plans to open 47 billiards next door to its restaurant.
The ordinance was adopted in 1964, with guidelines on hours of operation, age restrictions, gambling and consumption of alcohol. According to city staff, the ordinance required the tax assessor to issue a license of operation for a pool hall if an application had been approved by the chief of police.
With its antiquated regulations, city staff recommended the council repeal the ordinance in its entirety rather than make modern updates.
While originally intended to appear on the consent agenda, council member Bobby Rodriguez requested the item be pulled for further discussion among the city officials.
“When I got involved with this, which was just a few days ago, it seems — and I don’t think we can blame the businessperson — that there were some procedures currently in the ordinance that weren’t followed,” he said. “And then the idea of just doing away with the ordinance to me establishes bad precedence as a council. I think we need to rewrite the ordinance and ask the people to slow down a little bit while we rewrite it and consider what’s going on.”
Mayor pro tem Susan Coffman explained that a previous downtown business, Walking Beam Brewing Co, had pool tables in their location. The establishment was able to avoid conflict with the ordinance by not charging fees to play, she added.
Rodriguez then said his main point of conflict was not specifically with 47 Billiards next door, but rather a more general uneasiness with how businesses in the future may be able to open without the council’s knowledge and lack of following ordinances.
“Do we want to go on doing business on the good ol’ boy, ‘Hey that’s OK?'” Rodriguez asked. “When I heard we were just going to repeal the entire ordinance, I thought, ‘What are we going to do next time?'”
Coffman asked Director of Development Services Natalie Bilby if the restaurant had applied for any type of permit. Bilby said the city did not have an application for the operation of pool halls, or a fee for such in the city’s fee schedule.
“If they really wanted to go through with this process (of applying through the 1964 ordinance), I don’t know what we would do,” she said. “I don’t have a fee, I don’t have a form …I don’t know if we would be able to process it how the ordinance was written.”
City Manager Mike Murray said that city staff could rewrite the ordinance to clear up any outdated processes. Bilby added that was the original intention, until staff decided to suggest repealing the ordinance to the council.
Bridgeport Police Chief Steve Stanford added that from the law enforcement point of view, he didn’t have any concerns over the pool hall, citing other businesses that have had pool tables in their establishments since he joined the agency.
After more discussion, Murray pointed out the the ordinance is not triggered unless the establishment charges to use the pool tables. Rodriguez then suggested that 47 Billiards open without charging to avoid the ordinance while city staff and council work on modernizing it.
No action was taken. The council is expected to take action on the rewritten ordinance at the regularly scheduled April 22 meeting.
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