The complaint filed in circuit court seeking to stop the city of Jacksonville from shutting down internet cafes has been moved to the U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida.
The plaintiffs, Triad Venture Capitalists LLC, The Grand Arcade LLC and Chapman Enterprises of Atlantic Beach Inc., operate internet arcades at 4578 Blanding Blvd., 13947 Beach Blvd. and 2294 Mayport Road, respectively.
The arcade operators are represented by attorney Kelly Mathis.
The complaint contends that ordinances enacted by the City Council and signed by Mayor Lenny Curry seeking to shut down the plaintiffs' businesses and other similar businesses violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint says the ordinances prohibit protected speech and that the legislation fails “to bear any reasonable relationship to the lawful exercise of police power, thereby denying the plaintiffs due process of law,” a violation of the 14th Amendment.
The plaintiffs contend in the lawsuit that they operate businesses that offer customers the opportunity to participate in a sweepstakes rather than businesses allowing customers to gamble.
“They’re (the city) is saying it looks like gambling, so it’s a public nuisance,” Mathis said.
The complaint also contends that the language in the legislation is too broad to be enforced.
Mathis said as written, the ordinance would prohibit the display of any game ordinarily played at a casino or any game associated with gambling.
“You can play Scrabble at a casino and every sports event is associated with gambling,” he said.
Mathis said his plaintiffs also contend that under the ordinance as it's written, display of results of the Florida Lottery would be prohibited.
“The lottery is the purest definition of gambling,” he said. “The state knows that, so they carved out an exception.”
Shutting down his clients and about 150 other similar businesses would put about 2,000 people who are employed at the arcades out of work, Mathis said, and “create 140 vacant commercial spaces in areas where there aren’t a lot of commercial tenants.”
In May, Council passed a bill that prohibits the possession or use of simulated gambling devices by commercial businesses and set a Feb. 1 deadline for business to stop offering the devices or shut down.
On Oct. 8, Council voted to make the shutdown immediate.
Mathis said Tuesday he believes a hearing could be scheduled at any time and “at this point, it's in the hands of the federal court.”
