Sunday brunch ordinances will not only mean restaurants and bars can begin serving alcoholic beverages three hours earlier, but locations with limited video lottery will be able to have their machines activated at 10 a.m. on Sundays, the West Virginia Lottery's acting director said.
Largely overlooked in the brunch bill debate is that hours of operation for state Lottery video gaming machines in bars, clubs and fraternal organizations is directly linked to the hours when alcohol can be served in those bars and restaurants licensed by the Alcohol Beverage Control Administration.
Prior to passage of the brunch ordinances, video lottery machines have had to stay "dark" until 1 p.m. on Sundays, acting Lottery Director John Myers noted. Now, video lottery locations in those cities can have the video machines start up at 10 a.m.
"This is going to change the hours for LVL in those areas," Myers said.
Currently, he said there are 197 video lottery locations in the six cities approved for Sunday brunch ordinances - Charleston, South Charleston, Clarksburg, Martinsburg, Bluefield and Lewisburg. That's out of a total of 1,355 video lottery locations statewide.
Myers said video lottery retailers in those cities have been notified that they can ask the Lottery to activate their video lottery machines - which are controlled through a central computer at the Lottery headquarters in Charleston - at 10 a.m. on Sundays.
"We're basically going to ask that the specific LVL locations request the change," Myers said. "Some folks may not want to open earlier."
Charleston lawyer George Carenbauer, who represents the West Virginia Amusement and Video Lottery Association, said some video lottery locations may take advantage of the earlier Sunday hours, but said he does not expect a significant increase in revenue.
"I've not heard any discussions along the lines of, 'Oh wow, what a windfall,'" Carenbauer said.
He said 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sundays probably aren't prime hours for video lottery play: "It's not exactly Saturday night at 9 p.m."
However, Carenbauer said restaurants and bars that are otherwise opening for Sunday brunch would probably want to go ahead and have their machines activated at 10 a.m. Likewise, he said, bars and clubs that open around noon on football Sundays would probably benefit from the extra hour of video lottery operation.
"I don't expect this to be a significant impact on revenue," Carenbeauer said.
Myers said video lottery operations during Sunday brunch hours could increase overall video lottery gross revenue by 1 to 2 percent.
In the just-concluded 2015-16 budget year, video lottery machines statewide grossed $380.81 million, so a 1 to 2 percent increase would amount to somewhere between $3.8 million and $7.6 million of additional revenue.
"A couple of million dollars is a couple of million dollars," Myers said.
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