OK, let me get this straight. The VFW and American Legion posts are complaining that by removing their (illegal) slot machines the state is depriving them of revenue used to fund charitable causes and they will now have to curtail activities and lay people off without it?
These are private clubs; you have to be a member to play the slot machines. So...this is essentially a self-inflicted tax on their members.
It would make more financial sense to just raise membership dues to pay salaries for the employees that have been laid off. Or better yet, just have the members donate the money they would have put in the slot machines directly to the club.
That way they would have more money to disburse to their "charitable" causes because there would be no cut given to (out-of-state) vending companies and no "leakage" that is endemic in all cash enterprises.
When non-VFW, or American Legion members take in cash at their business they have to pay taxes, so it is only fair that they should too. If the state wants to legalize slot machines outside of the casinos, that's fine. I would like a few in my business too.
Jim Anderson
Rehoboth