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Wheat Ridge staff recommend repealing 1977 amusement-device licensing ordinance
Summary
City staff told the council the 1977 ordinance that licenses amusement devices is outdated and recommended repeal, citing limited enforcement needs and the $60-per-machine fee ahead of a planned Dave & Buster’s; council gave consensus to direct staff to draft ordinance language.
Wheat Ridge City staff recommended repealing a 1977 municipal ordinance that regulates amusement arcades and devices, saying the rule is out of date and imposes an unnecessary fee on businesses.
Deputy City Manager Mary Anne Schilling told the council on Jan. 5 that the ordinance’s original purpose was to keep coin-operated amusement devices from functioning as gambling devices, but the local landscape has changed. She said the code currently treats arcades (11 or more machines), amusement centers (4–10) and individual devices (1–3) the same way the city once treated liquor or gambling establishments and that the $60 annual license per machine creates an administrative and financial burden for family-oriented operations.
"We feel really good about not creating a burden on our businesses to be paying this annual $60 license fee," Schilling said, adding that the police department raised no enforcement concerns for the modern devices commonly found in grocery stores and family entertainment venues.
City Attorney Mr. Dahl told council the ordinance contains denial criteria and other provisions that now read as anachronistic — for example, language requiring that an applicant or manager not have been convicted of a felony within the last 10 years and distance restrictions that mirror liquor-code buffers.
"If we were to try to apply this the way it's written, we'd be denying some licenses that I think would be a huge surprise to these businesses that are not in the business of gambling," Dahl said.
Schilling and Dahl cited local examples during discussion: one multi-machine venue at the Bolero with about 38 machines and single-device examples such as a PokéBall-style game at a King Soopers. Schilling also said the prospective Dave & Buster’s at Clear Creek Crossing may bring an estimated 50–100 machines, though she said the company had not disclosed a final count.
After questions from councilors about state-regulated lottery vending machines and how the city’s code would interact with state authority, council members indicated a consensus to direct staff to bring forward an ordinance to repeal Article 9 of Chapter 11 and update the code. No formal motion or roll-call vote was recorded at the study session; staff will draft ordinance language for a future meeting.
Next steps: staff will prepare ordinance language and return it to the council as an item for formal consideration at a future meeting.
