8 March 21 - 27, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents to protect individuals hosting a friendly game in their private homes.” He added: “If poker’s allowed, why not slots and craps? As long as all proceeds are distributed to the players and not the host, they, too, would be legal in Dallas under this land use since the same laws affect all games of chance.” He urged the committee to let the courts settle this issue. Dupre said if the land use does pass, there needs to be distance re- quirements so the clubs aren’t too close to schools or residential areas. “The city can- not afford another half-baked solution to al- low illegal gaming,” he said. Former City Council member and local attorney Philip Kingston also spoke against the proposed land use, but for different rea- sons. “I’m here to speak as strongly as I can against this proposal and the reason is not because I don’t want poker rooms,” he said. “I think poker rooms are excellent uses of Dallas real estate.” He said it was a travesty when the city attorney’s office began trying to shut the clubs down. “The reason I’m against it is because staff has created an unnecessarily complicated regulatory system for this,” he continued. “We already have a classification called pri- vate club that does everything staff is pro- posing here except that it allows for normal stuff like serving alcohol and food. They’re proposing some kind of poker room world where you can’t have food and drink. It doesn’t even sound fun.” He said the reason he knows the private club land use allows gaming like poker is that this was the classification the city attor- ney’s office was trying to move poker rooms to before it put the kibosh on them. “The other reason I know that a private club can support gaming is because every country club in town has had a poker game for a hundred years,” Kingston said. “So, the only thing that staff’s crusade against poker rooms has done is limit legal poker to wealthy people in country clubs. My clients let Black people play poker. What a shock.” He suggested that ZOAC recommend regulating poker rooms the same way they regulate private clubs. ZOAC member Brent Rubin pointed out that the committee could get advice only from the city attorney’s office through a pri- vate executive session. ZOAC is not allowed to hold executive sessions. So, if the commit- tee wanted an executive session over this matter, it would have to be held by the city’s plan commission. Bertram Vandenberg, chief of general counsel for the city attorney’s office, said staff did consider the private club land use, but this zoning usually has an outdoor recreation component. For country clubs, as an example, there’s a golf course, Vandenberg explained. Committee member Nathaniel Barrett asked why poker or other gambling would have to be limited to an accessory use. Vandenberg said state law dictates that you can’t make money from gambling, so poker would have to be a small piece of the business. With all these restrictions, a question arose: Where exactly would these private game rooms be allowed? “That is the chal- lenge,” Gillis responded. “It is a challenge at this point as to where that would go.” ZOAC member Enrique MacGregor asked city staff to put it plainly: What type of business is this land use trying to allow and what businesses does it aim to get rid of? “I don’t think we’re trying to get rid of any- thing,” Gillis said. “I think we’re just trying to be more clear on what can be done.” Rubin suggested that the land use be sent to the city’s plan commission for consider- ation with a recommendation that it not be adopted. “Despite best intentions, we are working in a legal landscape that is far more complicated than originally contemplated back in 2021,” he said. Rubin’s motion passed unanimously. Barrett seconded Rubin’s motion to send the proposal to the city’s plan commission recommending not to adopt, but for a differ- ent reason. “I don’t think this proposal needs to be made at all,” he said. “We have a use in the code already called private club that seems to check all the boxes here. So I’m of the opinion that there’s no need for this new use at all because it serves no pur- pose not already fulfilled.” Reached for comment after the meeting, Barrett said it seemed next to impossible to op- erate a poker room under the current pro- posal. “You look at the restrictions on the things that can be the main use, it’s huge,” Bar- rett said. “Like it can’t have a restaurant, it can’t be a bar, it can’t be many, many other things.” He added, “It kind of leaves you to ask yourself ‘Well, what could it be?’ and the an- swer is staff didn’t really know.” ▼ POLITICS GUN FUN REQUIRED KEN PAXTON TAKES AIM AT FUN PLACES IN NORTH TEXAS. BY KELLY DEARMORE N ow that the dust has settled on Super Tuesday in Texas, it’s clear that two of the state’s top officials, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, en- joyed significant victories in many state pri- mary elections. The governor looked to bounce the House Republicans, who were primarily from small towns and rural dis- tricts, who had opposed his school voucher plans in 2023, while Paxton’s revenge was born from the House vote to impeach him last May when the GOP-dominated House overwhelmingly sent him to a Senate trial. Abbott was a more resounding winner in terms of success percentage than the AG, as 12 of the 14 candidates he backed either won their race or forced the incumbent into a runoff. But Paxton, going after a larger num- ber of elected officials than Abbott, still cele- brated some big victories for the challengers he supported over incumbents he had previ- ously been aligned with. Paxton missed on 21 of the more than 35 House races he lent his endorsement to. That sounds like a defeat on the surface, but he did help send eight incumbents packing and another seven to a runoff, something an incumbent shouldn’t feel too great about. Add to that, one of the Paxton-impeaching incumbents is Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan from Beaumont, perhaps the AG’s chief nemesis. That alone might’ve been a worthy result for Paxton, but the challengers to all three Court of Criminal Appeals judges defeated the sitting officials that Paxton had a beef with as well. We know what Abbott wants to accom- plish with a new-look House. He supported candidates who would in turn support his long-hoped-for plans to introduce school vouchers in Texas. But what about Paxton? So far, he’s been lawsuit happy as always, with school districts he accused of illegal electioneering among the more recent tar- gets. But one of the first things he did to give his latest augmentation of political power a test spin was to file suit against a bunch of places where people go to have fun. It’s right there in a press release: Paxton is taking a shot at five places, including four in North Texas, that allegedly do not want people carrying guns while others have fun. “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed five lawsuits to enforce state law against es- tablishments that refused to allow police offi- cers to enter the premises with their firearms, thereby jeopardizing public safety,” read the press release sent out on the afternoon of March 8. “The lawsuits allege that The Fac- tory in Deep Ellum (in Dallas), Texas Trust CU Theatre (in Grand Prairie), Meow Wolf (in Grapevine), The Lucky Duck (in San An- tonio), and the State Fair of Texas have vio- lated state law by restricting peace officers, including off-duty officers, from entering the premises with their authorized firearms.” In the lawsuit against Texas CU Trust Theatre, owned by the city of Grand Prairie and operated by the Anschutz Entertainment Group and AEG Texas, the state claimed, “From at least 2021, to the present the defen- dant has repeatedly prohibited and restricted numerous off duty peace officers from enter- ing its establishment with a weapon that such peace officers were authorized to carry.” Each of the suits contains wording similar to the one for the Grand Prairie concert venue. Also noted in the suit for each of the five venues are examples of officers who were allegedly denied access into the venue with a firearm after the AG’s office received written confirmation from the venue that it would permit such gun-toting officers in the future. Not explained in the suit is how the AG verified these instances, outside of simply receiving the individual officers’ complaints. In the case of Texas Trust CU Theatre, the lawsuit also pointed out that the venue’s website stated that weapons are not al- lowed, even for off-duty officers, thereby vi- olating state law. Officials from the city of Grand Prairie and AEG Texas, Meow Wolf and the Factory in Deep Ellum did not respond to a request for comment, but Karissa Condoianis, a State Fair spokesperson, did provide a state- ment regarding the AG’s lawsuit. “The State Fair of Texas takes seriously its legal obligations to allow peace officers to lawfully carry their weapon at the fair- grounds,” Condoianis wrote in an email to the Observer. “To that end, the State Fair re- quires at least one Dallas Police Officer to be posted at each admission gate to check cre- dentials and ensure compliance. This policy allows peace officers to deal face-to-face with fellow peace officers to ensure compliance and safety for all our guests. We are looking into the alleged incident referenced in the lawsuit to find out what may have happened.” ▼ DALLAS COWBOYS TAKING HITS OFF THE FIELD DALLAS COWBOYS LEGAL TROUBLES HAVE THEIR SPRING AWAKENING. BY KELLY DEARMORE A h, springtime in North Texas. So much of the season around here is predictably unpredictable. The weather? Rainy one day, bright and warm the next, but we know it’ll be wacky for a couple of months. We know the increased pollen count means that allergies will wreak havoc on our daily lives, but we’re never sure to what degree. When it comes to the Dallas Cowboys, we know that March brings about continu- ing anger over yet another season without a Super Bowl win and a head-scratching lack of activity in the NFL free agency period as division rivals load their teams with key pieces that seem to improve their teams sig- nificantly. But that’s not all we can count on when it comes to Jerry Jones and the players with stars on their helmets. No other team in football, if not in all of American pro sports, Michal Parzuchowski/Unsplash Poker rooms in Dallas have been the subject of debate in City Hall for years, but that might be coming to an end soon. Unfair Park from p6
