Internet cafes can be targets for robbery because they have a lot of cash. They're also targets of critics who say they are thinly-disguised gambling operations.
Their premise is this: you buy either access to the internet or even phone card minutes and you use this time on computers inside the cafe. The computers have video games and sweepstakes that can win you cash.
It seems you see more of them every day and it's estimated that Florida has more than 1,000. The Fun N Sun robbed at gunpoint overnight is just one of at least three such places along a one-mile stretch of us-41 in Bradenton. Critics call them strip-mall casinos.
They're purchasing internet time to win cash prizes. It's that simple.” says Scott Pinkus, owner of the Winners Circle on US-301 in north Sarasota which sports large signs saying it offers video gaming and video slots. But not gambling, Pinkus insists.
Pinkus says he saw the news about the robbery at the Fun N Sun. He says his cafe has numerous lights, 24 surveillance cameras and “an armed guard from when it gets a little bit dusk to the time we close,” he says.
Internet cafes need such security, he says, because they can become targets for robbers. “Because people can win cash.”
Manatee County Sheriff's Office spokesman Dave Bristow refused to say how much money the two masked robbers got away with from the Fun N Sun except to say it was “a decent amount.” Bristow says the cafes operate in a legal gray area. “We need a definitive ruling or the legislature to get involved,” Bristow says.
The latter may happen. In this year's legislative session, State Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, filed a bill that would outlaw what he calls "storefront casinos." It died in committee. He plans to bring it up again next year.
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