E.Kovtun: This law goes beyond common sense
According to Vice Mayor of Moscow Joseph Ordjonikidze, after Moscow City Duma adopts the amendments to the city law on locating gambling facilities, the number of Moscow gambling facilities will be twice reduced. In Mr Ordjonikidze’s opinion, 32 casinos and about 140 slot locations comply with the new requirements. But they announce different figures in Gaming Business Operators Association (GBOA): Vice-President of GBOA Evgeniy Kovtun stated that the number of Moscow casinos will be reduced from 55 to 12, slot locations – 3-4 times.
“It is vague what Moscow Duma was guided by, fixing these figures. We would like to get the reasoning: why a casino area shall be exactly 3 thousand square metres and why there shall be exactly 30 gaming tables,” Vice-President of GBOA told the “Gazeta.Ru”. “This law goes beyond common sense”.
Kovtun also reminded that the RF constituent territories do not have the right to pass stricter laws than stated by the federal law. This, from his viewpoint, is the ground for Moscow authorities to be in a hurry: they have rushed to adopt the amendments before the law on gambling approved by the State Duma is signed by President.
He informed the “Gazeta.Ru” that as soon as the federal legislation comes into effect, the city legislation will be contradicting it. “We are about to go to the law”, he declared.
Gazeta.ru