ANDREWS, Texas — The Andrews City Council held a meeting Thursday night, and on the agenda was the second reading on a zoning change from “general commercial” to “specific use permit for gaming redemption.”
The request was approved and the city of Andrews is now set to have a game room for the first time.
There was no public discussion at the meeting like the first reading had.
The approval came during regular council business, and the game room will be located at 107 NW 9th street.
It is important to understand what exactly this game room entails.
“The way I understand game rooms is a business comes in and they run what they call eight-liners, sort of like slot machines, and once you win you get certificates or you get minimal prizes for doing that," said Steve Eggleston, City Manager of Andrews.
There is some upside to an entertainment asset like this entering the city of Andrews, but the reaction seems to be somewhere in between.
“I would say it’s mixed," said Eggleston. "There are some in our community that want them, but I would say the majority probably are not real excited about them being here. They tend to bring other elements with them, and sometimes other crimes and things like that, so they have to be pretty highly regulated.”
The council held a work session towards the end of the meeting to further discuss how these situations could be handled in the future.
“But there are some things that we need to look at," said Eggleston. "You know, maybe, do we restrict them to a certain zone? One zone? Right now, the way in Andrews, you cannot create a game room in a residential zone, and that’s the only restriction we have as far as zoning. Maybe we need to identify one particular zone that you can do it in, and then exclude all the others. So that’s some of the things we talked about and I'm guessing we’ll be discussing at future council meetings.”
The land is leased by Delma Hernandez, and the game room can open whenever it’s ready.