By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The state Lottery Commission announced today it will hold a public hearing next Thursday on its plans to install ticket vending machines in retail outlets across the state.
The meeting will be at 1 p.m. at the Wyndham Hotel in North Little Rock (the meeting was originally scheduled to be held at the lottery’s downtown Little Rock headquarters). Comments will be limited to three minutes per person.
The lottery has bought 100 vending machines and plans to install them this fall. It began accepting written public comments on the machines last month.
The Christian conservative Family Council said today it gave the commission letters from 64 people asking for a public hearing. Lottery spokeswoman Julie Baldridge said the public hearing was planned before the Family Council submitted the letters this morning.
The Family Council opposed creation of the lottery, which was approved by voters in 2008. Executive Director Jerry Cox said the group’s focus now is on stopping the lottery from adding vending machines.
“We’ve already drawn up a bill to ban lottery ticket vending machines, and we have legislators who have expressed strong interest in sponsoring this type of legislation,” Cox said in a news conference at the state Capitol.
Cox would not say which legislators have expressed interest.
The Family Council will participate in next week’s public hearing and will ask the commission at least to postpone installing the vending machines until after the Legislature convenes in January, Cox said.
Cox also said the Family Council has received nearly 1,164 comments on its website in opposition to the machines and just 31 comments in support. He said the group would submit all the comments, for and against, to the Lottery Commission.
Baldridge said today the Lottery Commission had received four comments on the machines, one for and three against.
The Family Council maintains that the machines will lead to underage gambling and promote compulsive gambling. Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue has said the machines are necessary to meet sales projections and argued that abandoning them would result in fewer students receiving lottery-funded college scholarships.
