Jan. 6, 1978 cover story: Buffalo's battle over pinball machines

 

A topic near and dear to my eternally adolescent heart.

Jan. 6, 1978 

Nickel City Pinball Epic 

          INSERT COIN. KA-CHING! It was outgoing North District Councilman Eugene Reville who kicked the pinball controversy back to life. He reached for a proposal, tabled for three years in the Legislative Committee, and brought it before the lame duck Common Council in December.

          PUSH BUTTON TO RECEIVE BALLS. Immediate legalization of pinball machines, Reville urged. The other Council members thought it should be studied further. It was sent back to the Legislative Committee. KA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHUNK!

          BALL IN PLAY: ONE! The pinball scandal of 1951 is one of the darker, more sensational chapters in Buffalo’s not-to-distant past. Before it was over, a grand jury indicted four councilmen, three policemen, a deputy police commissioner and two city license inspectors – the one in office and his predecessor. The probers even summoned Mayor Mruk forward to testify under immunity. It caused the biggest police department shakeup in the city’s history. Pinball came to represent all that was bad about gambling.

          PULL PLUNGER TO SHOOT BALL. Gambling was the national outrage a generation ago. In New York City, where racketeer Frank Costello built a kingdom on slot machines, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia crusaded against it. Sen. Estes Kefauver grilled big-time mobsters and gamblers in front of nationally-broadcast committee hearings. A special state investigator was sent to clean up gambling at Saratoga Springs.

          BONG! ENTER GATE, SCORE 100 POINTS! Buffalo had gone through a gambling purge in 1939, but a decade later everyone was flush with new-found post-World War II prosperity. Money burned holes in pockets all over town. Judging from arrest accounts at the time, one could hardly walk down Washington Street without stumbling over dice games and curbstone bookmakers.

          PUSH BUTTON TO ACTIVATE FLIPPERS! The forces of morality reasserted themselves. Country clubs, sportsmen’s lodges and veterans’ posts were raided for their slot machines. Church groups crusaded against Bingo and got it outlawed. Guards were hired to discourage open wagering at events in Memorial Auditorium. Buffalo had its own bet-busting lawman, Inspector Arthur J. Haun, who pursued poker players as tirelessly as former Sheriff Amico sought out marijuana smokers.

          DROP TARGET, 100 POINTS! KA-THWACK! Pinball was in the thick of the war against gambling. The Buffalo Evening News led the battle against it, right after the game racked up $5 million in 1950. That was the district attorney’s figure. Others said it was closer to $10 million.

          TEN POINT BUMPER. DING! Pinball first swept the nation as a cheap entertainment craze after the first machines were introduced in 1930 and 1931. Their coin boxes saved many a Depression shopkeeper from going broke. To meet competition from slot machines, however, they began to include payoffs and free games.

          ADVANCE BONUS! 100 POINTS! The payoffs turned what was considered an innocent child’s game into a gambling device. New York City outlawed it in 1942, a band that stood until 1976. News reporter Jack Meddoff described one machine which gave the player one ball for a nickel. If two nickels were inserted, however, the chances of winning a payoff increased.

          EXIT CHUTE! 100 POINTS WHEN LIT! At the heart of Buffalo’s pinball trade was the Western New York Operators’ Association, which collected a total of $10,000 a month from its members. The grand jury charged that this was funneled through varies channels to various public officials. The jury advised outlawing the game because it bred gambling and corruption. Mayor Mruk singed the ordinance banning pinball Jan. 14, 1952. KA-THWACK!

          BALL IN PLAY: TWO! Most passers-by won’t notice See-North Distributing Inc. next door to the WBUF-FM studios on Main Street. The sign is painted over. The only clue is the showroom full of video games, jukeboxes and Williams pinball machines.

          BONG! ENTER GATE, SCORE 100 POINTS! “We see to what we call operators and they put them out into the field on commission, usually 50-50 with the owner of the location,” says the office manager, Jerry Au Clair. “They do their own service on the machines, but we have a service department here if they get hung up.”

          ROLL-OVER CHUTE! 50 POINTS! DING-DING-DING! Au Clair sells 200 to 300 games a year. Not to Buffalo, but to the suburbs, where they are legal and, for the most part, free of licensing restrictions. There are pinball arcades in the Thruway Mall, the Como Mall and Eastern Hills Mall. Housewives leave the kids there with quarters while they go shopping.

          TEN POINT BUMPER! DING! “The city will license TV games if they don’t give an extended play,” Au Clair explains as we approach a device called Space Battle. “This one here isn’t legal in Buffalo because it gives an extra 10 seconds for a score of 15.”

          ACTIVATE FLIPPERS! “This is penny-ante stuff as far as organized crime is concerned,” Au Clair continues. “It’s not as lucrative as people think. Some locations do $200 a week, but what’s good in one location makes up for what’s bad in another location. And the public is fickle.”

          RE-ENTER GATE! 100 POINTS! BONG! Rowe International is consolidating its Cheektowaga sales office into its new Syracuse branch, but it still has some new Gottlieb machines in its showroom. Side by side are two new Cleopatras, but they’re not quite identical. Office manager Ruth Willrich says the one with the lighted digital display is solid state. It also costs $300 more. “Try it,” she says. “It’s quicker.” Minus all the normal bundles of circuitry, solid state machines may become much smaller or much more complex, as well.”

          SPINNER! 100 POINTS WHEN LIT! “We aren’t supposed to call them pinball any more,” Willrich advises. “They’re flipper games.” What’s more, there’s a blue book for them, just like for used cars. It’s issued by Distributors Research Associates in Miami. Bally’s best-selling 1976 Elton John Captain Fantastic should bring $795 on a trade-in and go for $1,025 reconditioned.

          EXIT CHUTE! 100 POINTS! If Buffalo legalizes pinball, Willrich expects Rowe will import new and used machines from other parts of the Northeast. Operators already are checking on stock. But she doesn’t think pinball will be very big at first. The machines involve not only an initial investment, but also continual service and regular collections, not to mention sales work. What’s more, foosball and video games have changed the business dramatically in the past couple years. Western New York is the second or third biggest foosball market in the U.S. KA-THWACK!

          BALL IN PLAY: THREE! Councilman Raymond Lewandowski brought the original pinball proposal to the Common Council in 1974. He still favors it.

          ENTER GATE! 100 POINTS! “They’re amusement devices, pure and simple,” Lewandowski asserts. “You can gamble on checkers, right? The old machines, where you could get $500 for a nickel, that was gambling, but that’s not what the legislation authorizes. My intent is to help the small business person. There’s a lot of taverns that have gone out of business.”

          ACTIVATE FLIPPERS! Council Majority Leader George K. Arthur is solidly opposed to lifting the pinball ban. He sees it leading to gambling, troublesome youth hangouts and children spending their school lunch money in the machines.

          KICK-OUT HOLE! 100 POINTS! “The only really dark spot in city history was connected with pinball,” Arthur contends. “The police themselves are opposed to it. And there’s the question of how to enforce it. Here again would be the situation where we’re passing something and saying enforce this without the tools to do it.”

          TURNS BUMPERS OFF! Leading police opposition to pinball as the vice squad’s Capt. Kenneth P. Kennedy. He maintains the machines can be altered for gambling purpose and that the proposed city law would not protect against that.

          EXIT CHUTE! 100 POINTS! “The law is fatally defective,” he says. “As it is now, we can deal with them effectively at minimum expense to the taxpayer. I’m talking manpower, court cases and complaints. There’s enough machines in the city – ping-pong, pool, things like that. If someone wants to play a machine, they can play a machine.” KA-CHUNK!

          BALL IN PLAY: FOUR! Vinny Valle operates Games Galore in Eastern Hills Mall, the first shopping center pinball arcade in the area, and he has a few rules. No smoking, no drink, no food, no swearing, no rough-housing. There’s always an attendant on duty.

          ENTER GATE! 100 POINTS! “You’d be surprised how many older man – 25, 30, 40 years old – come in and play,” Valle says. “A lot of them work in the stores and they come over on a 20-minute break. It helps them relax.” EXIT CHUTE! KA-CHUNK!

          BALL IN PLAY: FIVE! Pinball has slowly regained respectability over the past 30 years. The first step was the invention of the flipper in 1947, which increased the skill factor. The add-a-ball feature, which extended play without giveaways, further redeemed the game in the ‘60s. Then came the rock opera “Tommy,” where divinity played the silver ball.

          TEN POINT BUMPER! DING! Pinball goes back to the ancient Greeks, who rolled stones into holes on hillsides. Its relatives are golf, bowling, billiards, bocce and marbles. Early pin and ball games, called bagatelles, show up in Charles Dickens. Abraham Lincoln was a bagatelle fan.

          TEN POINT BUMPER! DING! Through late 19 th century games heralded today’s machines, it wasn’t until the late 1920s that they became popular. The first ones were spring-loaded mechanical devices. Electricity, ringing bells, flashing light, bumper pegs and backpanels were introduced in the ‘30s. So was the tilt, invented by Harry Williams after he saw a player abusing his Advance game in 1932. Modern machines contain five different tilt dectors.

          DOUBLE BONUS! 500 POINTS! Two books proved invaluable to understanding the subject – “Pinball!” by Roger C. Sharpe with photographs by James Hamilton, and “Pinball Portfolio” by Harry McKeown. Sharpe writes vividly of the joy of playing, history, development and art, while Hamilton’s photos evoke games, players and arcades in America and Europe. McKeown’s is gentler and drier, but full of history, design and full-color pictures of classic machines (including Gottlieb’s 1965 Flipper Pool, the one that hooked this writer on the game).

          SUPER BONUS! 1,000 POINTS! SHOOT AGAIN! It stood in the corner, not far from a particularly obnoxious Tank Battle video game which seemed to be a favorite at this location. It was a 1975 Williams Big Ben with a Carnaby Street tourist motif and all the standard gimmicks.

          RE-ENTER GATE! 1,000 POINT BONUS! KA-BONG! McKeown describes Big Ben like this: “Making top ‘Big’ rollovers and ‘Ben’ drop targets multiplies scoring potential on target and activates ‘special’ and double bonus light in right-hand kick-out hole. Also lights free-ball light for free ball when targets hit again. Bonus advances on top button and rollovers.”

          LIT BUMPER SCORES 100 POINTS! Big Ben swallowed $2 worth of quarters in no time at all, but it was an exhilarating time. Twice the score soared within reach of the location’s 101,000 record. It wasn’t hard to get extra balls at 30,000 and 45,000. The challenge was earning still another extra ball off the bumpers and bonus lights. It took a really good run and a few nudges to do it.

          EXIT CHUTE! 100 POINTS WHEN LIT! “Is this a test case? Yes, I would imagine it is,” says Paul Cambria Jr. He’s attorney for Buffalo’s Wnek Vending and he’s going to State Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the city’s amusement machine law. He’ll argue that there are no standards for imposing the anti-gambling rule and that the law serves no legitimate state interest. It goes before the judge Jan. 19. KA-THWACK! GAME OVER! PLAY AGAIN!

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IN THE PHOTO: Gusto cover. Artist not credited.

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FOOTNOTE: That Jan. 19 date? Arguments “adjourned indefinitely while the two sides … review each others’ legal claims,” according to a story in The News. It took until November for a ruling to be issued by State Supreme Court Justice Rudolph U. Johnson. He said the city’s ordinance was constitutional, adding that if the ban was to be lifted, it was up to the Common Council to “legislate accordingly.”

          The ban was still in effect in January 1982 when The News’ Sunday magazine had a long feature story about video games and arcades. By the mid 1980s, the legality of pinball machines was becoming a moot question. Video games had vanquished them.