A Romanian politician believes that gambling should be removed from the country’s capital city of Bucharest. Like shunning someone with the plague, General Councilor Catalin Lucian Iliescu has submitted a proposal that would move all gambling halls to the outskirts of the city, to an area that would be dubbed the “neighborhood of gambling.”
According to Romania Insider, Bucharest has around 1,250 gambling halls. Iliescu believes that any of these that operates on the ground floor of apartment buildings should be relocated elsewhere and that no gambling facility should be allowed within 200 meters of churches, schools or other public institutions.
Iliescu has decided that relocating the facilities will help fight gambling addiction and other problem gambling issues, as the easy access to the locations fuels greater addiction. The proposal still needs to find support by Bucharest’s General Council if it is to be approved.
According to Iliescu, “This area should be able to be constructed and arranged properly by the municipality and the spaces will be leased to third parties that carry out such activities. The advantages would be that the police and the control authorities would have an efficient job and that the state budget receipts would be adequate. On the other hand, it would also be an advantage for the players, because it would be real competition between the firms that own these gambling halls.”
Romania isn’t the only Balkan state to be considering gambling changes. Kosovo placed a moratorium on the activity for 10 years last week after two employees from area casinos were killed in March. Albania has also looked to reduce gambling in the country, implementing almost a complete ban this past January. Riga, Latvia is also considering changes to its gambling landscape and could revoke the licenses of over 200 gambling halls in the city.
The Romanian National Office for Gambling doesn’t believe that Iliescu’s plan has much merit. It reports that the move would cause a considerable decrease in tax revenue from gambling activity and that it could also force a large number of people out of work.
Iliescu’s plan isn’t the only one being talked about in Romania. The mayor of Voluntari, Florentin Pandele, wants to relocate gambling halls and ban gambling in his town, and will put the matter to a referendum vote on May 26.
