You guys have criteria of how you guys do things, you know.
Certainly. With respect to security, which is obviously a concern we would have as well, again through the regulation that was put in place, there was a minimal security staffing requirement that we must adhere to. There's cameras, there's surveillance, all of which is strictly regulated.
With respect to the payouts, all of the devices had to be screened by a third party lab that will make sure that the payouts which were purported were accurate. So again, in each of these instances that you raised I agree with you 100 percent. Those are legitimate concerns. But what I'm familiar with is already have the regulatory framework in place prior to the legalization. That's all I'm submitting.
I'm kind of losing my train of thought here. He said so many things that I'm just trying to get it all wrapped around my head. But, you know, as far as casinos are concerned, when you're walking around a casino, you guys have rules that you're regulated by where you'll see if you have a gambling problem, call 1-800-gambler. You warn people while they're playing. Sometimes it pops up on the machines -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible).
Out of order, my man. You're going to get a shot. I'm just asking a question. I'm trying to get the information correct so that we can make --
-- an informed decision that's going to benefit everybody. All right. It's questions. I have no thought already. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible).
So what I'm saying is that you guys have rules about that kind of stuff, and this stuff's not regulated in any way whatsoever. These machines -- I think we're falling off the thing -- are illegal. They're not a legal machine. Once they pay out, that's illegal, correct?
I'm sorry. I didn't hear -- I don't think I understood the question. Let me ask --
A machine in a store that pays out is already illegal. It is illegal to gamble in an establishment that is not an established gambling site; is that correct?
With respect to these devices, these are the issues that are pending before the court right now with respect to -- I don't think there's an obvious answer to that regrettably given the state of the court. And that's one of my earlier recommendations, to wait until we get some guidance from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the issue that you're asking about.
Well, in seven more years we'll (inaudible). In the meantime, do you have calibrations on what similar machines have to pay out on average?
Oh, yes. I mean, by statute it's regulated for -- again, I'm specifically talking about the Gaming Control Board and the Gaming Act and slots machines that I'm familiar with. There's a specific statutory limit. But to be competitive, it must be higher than that. I believe our -- and again, this is coming from an attorney, not an operator. But I believe our payouts are somewhere between 91 to 93 percent, I believe is the range. So again, there's a statutory floor. But to be competitive you really can't go down that low. But the point is the machines are calibrated in advance to put on the gaming floor approved by a third party that they are --
GLI. It's a third party through the -- when I was there actually, the Gaming Control Board had some separate lab and did that and ultimately got --
I think it's Gaming Labs International or Gaming Labs, Inc. We always refer to it as the acronym GLI. But, yeah, there is a certification process. And no machines will go on a gaming floor regulated by the Gaming Control Board without the --
I know they're checked before they go on the gaming floor. After that, I would have to get back to you on that.
Would you I guess equate these machines to gambling or having a gambling-like effect?
By -- I'm not sure -- the definition of these machines again is something that's pending. Are you asking whether a problem or compulsion gambler would have a problem on these machines?
To be clear, that would be beyond my area of expertise. I think you can certainly draw your own conclusions. I'm here to discuss more from a regulatory standpoint, not maybe from a psychologist. But I certainly would trust your judgment and discernment to draw the conclusions that you may already have.
And so, I'm going to draw the conclusion to say that these machines have a gambling-like effect that can read a compulsatory -- a compulsatory --
Yeah, response. And given that, right, if I'm a compulsive gambler of these machines and I want to gamble more in a more legal, safe environment as the compulsive gambler, is it a more safe environment for me to receive the feelings that I'm looking for at one of your casinos?
It would certainly be more regulated. And let me be very specific what I mean by that. You would have the opportunity if you thought you were a problem compulsive gambler to add your name to a list where you would be prohibited from entering and playing in our casinos. That is a mechanism that's been in place from day one at the Gaming Control Board and continues. That mechanism to my knowledge is not in place in the devices that you're discussing.
It is not. And I would say that then a customer would then have to put themselves on a list to no longer enter their corner store that they've been going into for years upon years upon years, right. So I think that that framework here will be ineffective for what we are trying to accomplish here. And so, I just think that, you know, understanding the psychological effect, you're not here for that. But as a member of the body, we have to look at things holistically --
-- and looking at that particular issue, I do think that having these machines in our communities then leads to folks, you know, can lead to your particular employer benefiting from these machines, so I could see why you are here to testify in support of these machines.
Just one follow-up. Would you allow these machines in the casino?
I wouldn't make that determination. The Gaming Control Board makes very clear what we can and cannot put in our facilities.
Well, you've treated me very well. I sincerely appreciate all of you giving the opportunity to provide questions and answers, and I certainly would make myself available in the future if that might be helpful to you even in a small way.
Mr. Chairman, our next speaker is William Beck. (Witness approached Witness table.)
State your name for the record. Please begin your testimony.
My name's William Beck. I'm in this business and I'm glad I came after the casino gentleman. He's telling some truths, but not all the truths. He don't want skilled machines because they're competition. They have 1-800 numbers and they have these do-not- allow-betting lists, but they're not there to help people. They're there so they can stay in business. See this here? Everybody has one of these, a cell phone. Okay. You can go on any app now. You don't even need to walk in brick-and-mortars for anything. Okay. You can just gamble right from the phone. And I watched it destroy my son's life for a little while. Okay. So I don't want to hear about the heroism of the casino. What I do want to say though is I agree with everybody up here, that it is definitely a nuisance if it's not regulated. And I earn off of skill machines, part of what I do in the business. And I work for a company. I'm not going to say their name because I'm not speaking on behalf of them. I'm speaking on my experiences. But this all started, you guys keep saying in 2017. From what I learned or from my experience is in 2014 there was a bill passed -- not a bill passed, actually a court ruling from a judge in Beaver County saying that these skill machines are legal because they're not a game of chance. They're a game of skill, for whatever reasons, whatever you can do, nudge a button, play follow the banana or touch here, whatever they are. And that's why they started coming out. Initially, it was one machine, a Pace machine that was on the court ruling. That was it. Okay. So then I guess around 2017, 2018, 2019, COVID especially, you start seeing all these unauthorized skill machines that weren't adjudicated by the judge in Beaver County. What happened was I think that a lot of people from Virginia -- the one gentleman said New York, I don't know -- but they came down and started offering a wide variety of commission structures all unregulated by even the judge, a court. Okay. That's where the problem started. That's where the infiltration of all the neighborhoods, delis, gas stations. You're right. There's six, seven machines, you know. If my aunt or my grandmother, God rest her soul, or my mother walked into a place like that for their convenience, because that's what that store initially owned for, convenience, they might be a little intimidated. I know our company or bigger vending companies out there wanted to do this for tavern and bar owners and VFP Posts, stuff like that, because they needed extra income and that was supposed to be in a bill with VGTs, video gaming terminals. And for years these big vending companies, even though that adjudication was in Beaver County in 2017, they didn't even try to put any of these games out because they didn't want to jeopardize their licenses for the future for legal, regulated video gaming terminals. But for whatever reason, there was a lot of pushback from the powers that be, casinos. It didn't go through. So again, I guess it spread down from Beaver County into the area. Okay. And we were just following regulations from the Beaver County judge. That's what most people in the industry did, until they didn't. And I guess that's why we're all here today because it festered. How do you regulate it, a lot of people were talking about. I'm no expert in that. I would say to the one Councilmember, these games in convenience stores, you know, you would walk in with your little kid, probably one game there and that would keep the traffic down. That would also keep people from playing for hours. And that also wouldn't affect the one woman's business that she says it helps her with income and it probably does. I think you can find a happy medium to everything. But five or six or seven machines is outrageous. And we're in that business and we don't feel like it's appropriate. That's what casinos are for actually.
Liquor establishments, bars and stuff like that, like everyone up here was suggesting, they take ID, you're carded. Yeah, that's probably a good place for it, especially now since the regular grocery stores and Acmes and everything like that have a liquor license, they can buy take-out here. That was a big part of a bar when they pay $100,000 for their liquor licenses, take-out beer was, you know, part of their revenue. Now, it's not. You can just go to the Acme, you know. So I think a happy medium, it's a good business. The City definitely could make a lot of money on it, regulate it and it should be. It could help every inner city, whatever. I grew up in Philadelphia, so I hear everybody talking about the crime this and, you know. In the end, it is the person, you know. But certain things lead to crime, you know. So I wanted to come up and just state some facts because I am in the business. I see the City streets. I'm all over them. Kensington and Allegheny, I spent some time down there before it got out of control. I don't think skilled games are anywhere in that vicinity or are even making money because of the drug problem, so that's an issue. I will be more than happy to answer any questions.
I understand the (inaudible) of a casino. You have people serving you drinks. You have food flowing. You have the ringing of the bell which is like Pavlov. You get stimulated, you want to put your money in. You hear somebody win, ah, I won, and that helps. Tell me when you're sitting in one of these neighborhood places what attracts people to that ambience.
To go gamble at a corner store versus the casi -- what attracts --
It's a video game. And so, that attracts people. Before there was skill machines there was arcade games, Ms. Pacman. That's what attracts people. So that's what attracts people because it's there. Now, if there's five or seven or ten of them, well, then there's more of an attraction. I get what you're saying. But when you walk into the store if it's there, just like the vending machine now that you have from the Pennsylvania State Lottery, before it was just walk up and get a ticket. Now, they can go there and put their money in there and get, you know, same thing -- well, not the same thing, but the same type of attraction. There is lights. There is music, you know. There is things. It's there.
Okay. No, that's helpful to me, because when I see stools right by there and people sitting on them and I'm looking around, it's cheese and butter and milk and they're sitting there, in their mind I'm thinking where are they. But I see what you're saying. Thank you so much. Any other --
So it took you a long time to get up with your testimony, but you seem mostly to be testifying in support. I mean, you seem mostly to be agreeing with us that it's better to have these games in places that sell liquor and are licensed, you know, more appropriate for their presence.
Right. Because I thought why I was coming here today because I saw the City ordinance, and I thought you guys were making certain adjustments to them as far as 30 more seats, or 12 more seats. 13
And regulation. 17 I mean we're not -- you want law 18 and order just like the other 19 people said. I have children. I 20 don't want to see, you know. I don't want to see kids -- we have stickers that says 18 or older, but come on. But if they're in liquor establishments, they can't go in, you know. And you're more of an adult at a certain age.
So you agree with the bill with the amendments that have been made?
So we did a cut-out because of those reasons that you said, the bars, VFWs, restaurants that have seating for a certain amount. What we're trying to regulate is them in the stores. So you're actually saying regulate them and limit them. Is that what your testimony was for the stores?
So if I was writing the bill, I wouldn't want to hurt store owners either and I think we can come up with a reasonable solution for that, and I guess that would be a combination of everything as far as, you know, if you have a convenience store, a regular convenience store, not a convenience store that says they're a convenience store with three items on the shelf, you know what I mean. One machine, you don't have the traffic. Maybe two machines, I don't know. I don't know their number there, but definitely not more than two because then you're asking for people hanging out. And I saw the video with the police officers and the gentleman that got shot, but the guy that got shot wasn't even the guy playing the skill machine, you know what I mean. But, no, that's -- because you're going to have crime like the one lady said, you know, and you don't want to hurt them. So if you did one skill machine, they can make a decent income. Now, the people that put five to seven machines at our convenience stores, that's greed. That's all that is. And if they're here today, I know it because I deal with you, you know. Those bonuses that guy talked about, people coming in from $10,000 and giving a bigger percentage, they come from a place that deregulated or didn't -- either they were regulated or -- yeah, they were regulated and I think they got deregulated, so now they're sitting on equipment. They can give you whatever because they've invested so much money on equipment. That's what'll happen next here. You want to get something straight, you know. You just want to get it in one direction where you don't have this crime. You want one or two regulated games like it was from the judge in Beaver County and yous had that issue and yous compromised the City and there was a ruling on that, that yous weren't going to pick up machines. The City has that with just that machine, that manufacturer. And yet and everybody piggybacked off of that, and the bad actors jumped in. So basically you do have legal skill games.
And you have illegal ones. We want to make sure that any skill games that you do have -- or not make sure. We would like to come to a compromise obviously for everybody, safety, income, generate income, you know. That's all.
-- when I start hearing the wrong things, I get a little emotional. It's the Italian side of me, you know what I mean.
They get like that too. Thank you so much. Mr. Glass, we have two more to testify?
Mr. Chairman, our next testifier will be Tang Jhen. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Thank you. Hey, my name is Tariq and I'm a small business owner in South Philadelphia and I'm a member of FOA. We have about 100 store owners in the association. That means that I'm one person but means 100 people are speaking. We have a lot of good and a lot of bad out there, but nowadays we are going as a business owner to a lot of challenges, which is high theft, inventory shortages, more taxes in City of Philadelphia than any other county in Pennsylvania. For example, sugar tax, $2 a pack per cigarette, right, and a lot more is going on there, BIRT taxes, right. We need -- on one hand that I heard most of you guys that trying to support the community, but what I think, you can't support the community without having a small businesses. And only we can be in business if we have a lot of cash flow nowadays because of the inflation. Cost of living is way so up high. Before the COVID, we used to pay $6 or $7 an hour -- by the way, I'm a 7-Eleven owner. We used to pay $7 or $8 and due to the employee shortages, inventory shortages and a lot of more problems, the wages have went up so high and everybody is mostly at least paying $12 an hour. For me the small business owner, if we sit in a room and we trying to guess if it's hot or cold out there, we're always going to have a wrong decision if you don't go with it, right. So for us to take a real steps and study the reality, I will recommend to have a team in place and they can go and really understand the small business owner, that how many challenges they are going on daily basis. Long story short, if the skills of game machines was not alive, we would not be in business. My door is open and I'm having about 12 family members there are just eating and their way of reason because we have a skills of game machines and my business is open. If you took the skills of games away, my door will be closed. That mean if my door is closed, there is going to be hundred more 7-Elevens in the City of Philadelphia that will be closed too. We are talking about that there is a positive, negative. Like, okay, people hanging out in the store. This is not because of the skills of games machine. This is because of policing. The police are not responding to the phone call. They're not showing up on time. Even the police are saying we have to be closed. The reason why we say that because the regulation has been met, the (inaudible) are not supporting the police, but they are supporting the criminals. So we need to make better laws for businesses, how they can be alive and make a better laws for policing that, okay, how they respond to the matters. So my suggestion is that we need to make a reg -- you guys need to make a regulation in having a better environment for skills of game machines which is supporting small businesses. So I would like to take any question you guys have.
So first, thank you for coming in and your patience. I want you to know that we support small businesses. We are not in the business of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. You are the employers and people who pay our salaries, so we recognize that. The question I have is what percentage of gaming is your total gross of your business?
Forty percent. We are making forty percent of the business. My yearly commission is about $100,000.
Let me add this thing. Like before I used to have a lot of employees issues, right. People used to come and shoplifting a lot, right. The employees used to constantly working at the store. The reason why like 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. or 12:00 a.m. in the morning they used to be all alone in the store. They used to get scared. Right now these businesses, the skills of game machine is bringing people to the store who is sitting and giving kind of confidence to the employees who they can talk to, right, and they feel more comfortable.
Okay. He said 100,000, 40 percent. That's significant. Okay. Any questions?
So let me take this. If you -- like my yearly payroll is about $230,000, right. If you take the skills of game machine -- and last year including taxes, I made $96,000. If that $100,000 went away from my income, I will make 0 balance and in the negative.
So in order to operate a convenience store, you have to operate a gambling -- you have to have a gambling-like component to it. That's what you're telling us today?
In order to operate a convenience store, you have to have a gambling-like component to it in order to stay in the black?
Based on what you've said is that you are no 17 making it -- you cannot make enough money in your store unless you have these machines?
So again, sir, as a convenient store, you must have these machines in order to keep your doors open?
Prior to these machines being utilized in Philadelphia, how long has your store been open without the machines?
My store been open more than 40 years ago, right. But before COVID, there was a different environment. We can't count those. We used to have $7 or $8 employees, right. Right now at least we are paying $12 an hour to every employees. People used to work so hard because there was no 15 Uber, no Lyft, no DoorDash in places, right. And right now people are not into that. People just want to have it easier, so they're not working hard like they used to be, right. So before, like for example, if you used to have two employees per shift to cover the shift, we need at least a third person to cover the shift.
So essentially because of the employee market, right, the employee market now has driven down your profit margins because employees are now demanding more money to work?
So in order to cover that profit margin, you're stating that the only way that you can cover that is by having these machines in the store?
Yes. That means if you go to 100 7-Eleven store owners, right, and sit with them and go through their financial, right -- for example, if you go to a mom-and-pop store, right, I don't think you're going to come out with any type of result because there is nothing documented. But in 7-Eleven that everything is documented, right, and you can see that what the real life is.
So I can tell you in a past life before I became a member of this body, again I said I represent small businesses, my firm represents a lot of franchise owners. So I understand where your profit margins are, where they're at and where they could be. But this is the first time that I've heard that someone cannot operate their store unless they have these machines in there.
Yeah. So my store in the City of Philadelphia counted as a higher volume store, right. But for me as a higher volume store if I cannot operate, there is a lot more that they cannot -- these 100 FON member -- the 100 FON member supposed to come into this meeting. The reason they cannot come into this meeting because they're poor people. They start 6:00, 5:00 a.m. in the morning and they're getting off work about 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. They're putting every day and 14 4 and 13 hours a day. 5 And probably we all a 6 7-Eleven customer. Probably you 7 guys in the morning go to 7-Eleven. 8 When you get off work and you go 9 back to that 7-Eleven, you're going 10 to see the same employee. Why? 11 Because of all these challenges. 12
And I 13 get working hard, right. I was an 14 entrepreneur. I understand getting 15 up early, working late. I mean, 16 that's what happens when you're an entrepreneur. That's what you have to do. It's a part of business. But I just find it hard to believe that the markets will not be able to adjust to this type of regulation and that you are only able to see a profit margin significant enough to stay in business with these machines. That's all.
So my answer to that question is, if I understood it correctly, right, so myself cannot be in business without having these machines in the store, and this is the voice of every single franchisee that you're just hearing from only one of us.
I've gone to 7-Eleven in Center City and I have not seen these machines.
I've gone to 7-Eleven inside of Center City and I have not seen these machines in the 7-Elevens in Center City.
So we was having the gentleman -- he have four stores or three stores, Buwenda(ph). I'm talking about Buwenda. He just left. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible).
No, he got three stores. He has it in his three stores. He has it. You have them in your store? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible).
Okay. How many -- you have them in your store? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible).
Some of the address is -- some of it I remember on top of my head. Mine is -- okay, if you go 23rd and Passyunk that has it. If you go to Broad and Wolf, that has it. If you go to 10th and Snyder, that has it.
So I guess my point is that for you to say that these stores cannot operate without these machines, I have seen 7-Elevens operate in certain areas and places that don't have these machines. That's my point.
So, like, some people they're having a lot of family support, right. So if you go inside those stores and ask them, right, so probably their son is under was come in out of 5 school. In the morning mom is 6 working. Afternoon father is 7 working. Later on in daytime the 8 son is working, right. So some of 9 the people they are running the 10 store that way, right. That is 11 another story. But the stores that 12 are depending on employees, right, 13 so they cannot operate. 14
I mean but 15 again, that's the nature of having a family business. Being a small business owner that happens every -- even look at whatever industry you want to look at. If you're going to be a small business owner, that's the time, that you get up early and you go to sleep late. That's the nature of it. So again, I'm trying to figure out why is it that this particular industry has to have these machines in order to be profitable.
Okay. So this particular industry, we are making a good amount of money from them, right, and it's easy money for us to make it. And this is safe. We don't have any problems about -- okay, if you're talking about the guy he was just saying that, okay, we having the ATM, like somebody cannot get in the ATM. We can just arrange the store and we can put in -- and there should be regulations where we can put it, where we cannot, the number of machines. Make sure that whoever own the machine company they are paying the license fee and they are regulated. These are the kind of changes make it, but it is not -- it is highly -- I highly disagree if the machine is going to be taken away from the stores.
Thank you so much, Member Young. And thank you for your testimony. We have to have frank discussions to get an understanding, so I appreciate you telling us the reality of running a franchise store and I appreciate it.
My name is Brian Castillo. Nice to meet you guys. I was an immigrant and I was born in Dominican Republic. I came here and started working in a bodega. So within the time in that bodega there was a couple of times a week, couple times a month, maybe three or four months in a row where the store owner told me, I got to pay you tomorrow or I have to pay you next two days because they wouldn't have the numbers. When I stopped working at the bodegas, that was one of the reasons because there was no money to pay the customers. I'm an operator so I got into this business. I was able to go to the same store owner which he was like father to me, go to the store, put in one of these machines in there, one of the skilled games. Now, the guy, he actually has two more employees. It's not just making revenue to the store owner or to the operator, it's actually creating jobs because there's time when grocery store owners where there's a lot here and there's a lot of people that actually had to come here. That one of the reasons they are able to have a little bit more freedom in their business is because they're able to actually pay for another employee. I understand the reason about having six, seven machines being a problem for the community, which total fine. That's why in everything actually -- actually in alcohol, in sodas, in food, that's why the FDA actually exist. There has to be control in everything by the City. So one way for you guys as the City to actually fix that problem is come in and help out but not take them out. We working -- there's a lot of people coming in. Everybody said everything that I had to say today, totally right. You have a store, you go to the store, you put the machines. Then you only put two because the store owner said, I don't have any more space. Somebody else come in, offers them $1,000, $2,000 per machine to put their machines in. So now we have my two. Then we have the other guy that offered $4,000, $5,000 to put their two and then we have another guy. And as a store owner, you have to understand $5,000 is a lot of money. $5,000 for everybody is a lot of money. So when you have everything in cash, even if the machine doesn't make that much money, it's a lot of money. So one way for you guys to regulate it is actually implementing two machines per store. That would actually help in the four, five, six guys hanging out inside of the store and then somebody comes in like a child or the grandmom, your mom, you, yourself actually go into the store. You don't have to bump into everybody because there's five, six guys playing on the machines. Totally right about that. Percentage-wise, money-wise in Norristown, I know it doesn't really matter in Philly, but in Norristown something they did is that you couldn't put more than six machines inside of a store depending on the square footage and they charge $100 per year per machine. That's in Norristown of course. And I know that because I've paid it myself. That's one way to actually help out. Another way to help out is regulating the percentage by profit. We usually do 50/50. Pennsylvania Skills is another company that do 60/40, so they say it's 10 percent for the state which is not regulated, so they say they pay taxes, but they're not paying the actual percent to the state. They say that, but it's 60/40. And there's another guy that came from Virginia, that came from New York and from everywhere to be honest because it's a business, that they do 75, 65, 85 percent and that makes business a little bad if we can say that, because the store owner's saying, I'm going to get a little bit more money, but then he wants to stay with you and then it becomes another problem of having seven to eight machines. The problem with doing $500 penalty, $300 penalty is not worth it. If you're going to do anything with the skill games, it has to be something $50,000. The store owner gets scared.
When you talk about $2,000, the store owner gets scared because I mean, there's stores they don't make $1,000. And there are certain locations that they used to make $1,000 per week, $500 per week. Now, with the economy it's $100 a week, $200 a week. So now, everything is going low. I had a store myself. In bad times, we had to actually fire employees. There was no way for us to cover the cost. That's how I actually started in this business because we put these machines in to make it up. When the sir right behind me said that he has 100 7-Elevens that they are actually dependent on these machines, I believe him because the economy is not what it used to be. Right now, I don't know, a box of juice cost $3, $4. 49. Eggs used to be five for $5. 50 each dozen. Now, it's not. 99. 99. So you have to understand there's a lot of more cost in everything and less money on the streets. So right now if you open up a store, you can do it yourself. 50, you make $50. But then the employee has to work hours 8 making $100. You're negative. The 9 only way we can actually figure 10 this one out and actually help 11 everybody out, small businesses, 12 that this is why we are here, it's regulating the machines, making them 100 percent legal, taxating them but also helping the store owner. Most of everything helping the store owner. Because we as distributors, we don't have that much problems as they do. We still have to pay employees. We still have to cover the negative. We still have to cover the cost of fixing the machines, which cost a lot of money. Just one screen cost $1,000. So when it breaks, it's $1,000 that we cover, not the store owner. The store owner gets a lot of -- how can I say this -- a lot of profit, which can be taxable if we only can help him out. We do 50/50 like we said. There's no 8 problem giving the state or the City percent. I don't know, 10 $100 per machine. However, you guys can actually understand and actually pay even the officers so we can help the officers, pay them more hours, more everything because -- how can I say this. Criminal activity outside of the skill games, they exist. I used to work for an ATM company. They broke into my car. They stole $50,000 out of my car. I was with my pregnant at the time wife at the time -- well, my wife. She was pregnant. We went to Home Depot. We went to buy some tools. Somebody broke into the car, stole $50,000. That was two years ago. Up until this day, I haven't heard from the police telling me where is my money or if they actually caught the guys, which they got on video because it was in a Home Depot parking lot. So it exist already. If you go to Kensington Ave, it still exist. You see people robbing in the streets with police passing by. They just don't stop because of the location. I called -- the same day I called for the $50,000. Let me tell you, it's a lot of money. They took over an hour to be there. That was before the machines. So when certain guys come here and tell you this is harming the community, how is it harming it if it's already there? It doesn't improve it because there's drugs in the street right now that doesn't have nothing to do with us. There's people robbing because of necessity, because I'm not saying they're doing it because they want to. Some people want to actually. But this is not a problem from the skill games. Putting them in liquor stores, just in liquor stores, you would be killing hundreds, if not thousands of store owners that actually made money out of that. And it just doesn't matter how much we can say it is some to the skills games, that's why we're having problems, when the actual problem is out there. Thank you. Any questions?
Yes. Thank you for your testimony. I really appreciate that, you know, providing a perspective for me. But one thing you said is that how does this regulation change things or how do these machines change things in communities. What I would say is that these machines, it concentrates the negative behaviors in the stores, right. So the negative behavior exist. It's going to exist in these communities, wherever you go, it's there. But you don't want to concentrate that on one location, on one space because that exacerbates the negative things that are happening in communities. So for us as a body, again we want to figure how do we mitigate any negative things that are happening in our communities, and these machines from my perspective concentrates that negative behavior on these stores, right. And that's just like if I put it outside of my house, right, and folks are coming to use this machine outside of my house all the time, congregating outside of my house. How do you think my neighbors will feel, right. And that is what's happening in these communities. These stores are in communities with neighbors, and that's all we're saying. And so, the neighbors, the communities --
One thing -- I'm sorry to interrupt you. One thing that -- the players are not from outside. The players are the neighbors. That's one thing. The second thing is negative behavior comes with cigarettes, it comes with alcohol. When somebody goes to the convenience store and actually says, let me go buy a pack of cigarettes and they say, we don't have them, do you know what they do? They even break your store because you don't have them. And this has nothing to do with the machines. And trust me, I told you I've worked in a store. Somebody went, bought a pair of headphones. He bought headphones. They stopped working the next day. He went in there and he broke them on my face. We had a protector, thank God. But he threw them on my face. There was no machines at the time. Negative behavior exists.
It has something to do -- but let me tell you. It doesn't have nothing to do with the machines. Because if you have two machines, there would -- if you go to any stores, if you go to, I don't know, let's just 100 stores, and I can tell you because we have locations in over 100 stores. We pay our taxes. We pay everything. We pay employees. We buy gas stations. We go to store owners. We buy them groceries so it helps -- everywhere helps out. There's no negative behavior in our stores because of the machines. We've never had a problem breaking them. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I'm saying it happens not that much a month. Not even a month, it happens --
I must be going at the wrong times then when I go to the stores.
Of course. I'm not saying -- it's like you're saying that we shall compare Kensington Ave, right, to Central Philly. That doesn't have any sense. There's more drugs on Kensington Ave and more homeless guys than in Central Philly, right, so it doesn't have nothing to do with the location or with the machines. It just have something to do how the community works with education, how the City helps these guys out because we have nothing to do with how somebody is not educated. That's something that has to deal with the City with. The education, I have an education and I've been in trouble before, but you don't see me breaking stuff. You don't see me slamming into other people. If you say that the people that drive, that they have a negative behavior when there's construction down on Roosevelt Boulevard, that always happens. Then at that traffic stop somebody is always put into harm every time and somebody trying to crash on somebody else because there's a traffic stop. And it's not because of us. It's because of the City's actually repairing or building the streets. It doesn't have nothing to do with the machines. It has everything to do with the education that the City provides to the citizens.
Right, but the machines create the environment for these things --
A good environment if you don't know. You know what they do when they win that I've been there? They get happy --
And you know what they do when they lose all their money? They get upset.
No, no, they don't get that upset. Believe it or not, they don't get that upset.
Of course. Like I said, if you go into those type of communities where people are not educated, where people are going to break into stuff no matter if they're playing machine, you know what matters, everything to them. If you don't fix their streets, if you don't put cigarettes -- which right now a cigarette license is crazy to get. If you don't get liquor license and somebody is trying to sell beer, you can't do that because it cost $200,000. So for you to go regulate something for the liquor store owner only, you have a certain amount that you're going to give the people so it's going to be like a monopoly. Just a certain amount of people can have it, the people that have that money. So somebody with a grocery store, $100,000, that's a lot of money. So you know what's $200,000? Just to purchase the licensing for the liquor license, $200,000 to $300,000 just to purchase the liquor license and then you have to build a business. It's over a half a million investment. There's not everybody that has that kind of money. So --
That is a risk of being a small business owner. When you --
Of course. But the risk comes with the City too. So if the City doesn't work for the citizens, then we're in trouble. You guys as the City have to help the small business owner to succeed, to stop becoming a small business --
Not to the detriment and quality of life in our neighborhoods.
-- when you become from a grocery store now you have enough money to actually become a supermarket, that generates a lot of traffic and it generates a lot of employees. That's just -- it is what it is. Business works just like you said. The problem is when you say the community now they're having problems -- there's one store in every single street. Every corner there's a store. We don't have nothing to do with that. The City does because if you don't want 100 people in one store, then you let them open a lot of stores. So if you don't want everybody to go just to the casinos and go to the liquor stores, it's a monopoly. Just two guys can have it and the guy that has a lot of money. Remember, this is America. So one of the things, most of the immigrants actually come here it's because we are able to succeed in this country because we are not able to actually open it in our country. Remember, in our country that's the problem that we have. For you to open up a successful business, you must be a millionaire or you must have a lot of money or friends with a lot of people. In America you can open up a business with $10,000; $20,000 that you get from a loan and you open up a small business. Do you know what the dream of everybody, to grow, not stay a small business. So these machines help these guys out to actually open two stores, three stores. There's people that actually have opened two, three, four stores. You know what those stores do? They pay taxes, they pay sugar taxes. They pay employees and employees pay their taxes. So it helps them. It helps everybody out. When you give these guys an opportunity to make $500 which maybe for you guys is not a lot of money, but $500 pays a lot of bills. Remember, rent is $1500 these days. So right now if you take this $1500 a month from these guys of $6,000 a year, you're taking their rent, you're taking two, three employees getting fired, you're taking us as operators firing our guys and you're taking even the store owner paying taxes and us paying more taxes than we should. So we're helping everybody. It's just like a circle. Everybody's helping each other.
So should we allow other activities to occur in stores? If we were able to tax it, should we allow store owners to sell other illegal items because it's being taxed because you're making money contributing to the economy, should we do that?
I'm sorry to say this. But in this country it happened with weed, because it makes a lot of money, because it makes everything. Now, we're regulating weed. So can you tell me, can you actually tell me skill games are more dangerous than weed?
It's not more dangerous but it's being regulated and it's becoming legal in every state.