City of Freiburg closes all arcades - with consequences

In January all arcades in the city area of Freiburg had to close. There was an outrage all over Germany as a reaction to this extreme action. The total closure of arcades did not pass a first judicial review however. But does this mean that there will not be any arcades in Freiburg now and why did all arcades in the city in Baden-Württemberg have to close?

The action taken by the regulatory agency in the city of Freiburg was a hot conversation topic among gambling enthusiasts all over Germany. In January, using a trick the city of Freiburg succeeded in closing all arcades in the city area of Freiburg. Previously, shortly before Christmas, the office for public order had announced that no ruling will be taken about the applications received from arcade operators. And this was done, even though many licences would expire at the end of the year, i.e. on 31.12.2021.

Decision about applications would be postponed

The city of Freiburg had decided to postpone the ruling on the received applications to spring 2022 and thus it would be postponed by several months. Once the legal situation was carefully examined, there was a suspicion. According to the jurisdiction of the VGH Baden-Württemberg, the so-called old operators must “proof a seamless continued operation“ to be able to continue operating because of the new measures which protect youths.

It would be a problem for the previous operators if their permission had expired and there was an uncertainty about the situation, i.e. whether they would be continuing to operate or not. And exactly that could happen in the case of the closure of arcades in Freiburg. In accordance with the law, the arcade operators were than obliged to initiate redress mechanisms as soon as possible and autonomously. Only recently we had reported that with immediate effect there will be a minimum age of 21 years at the arcades in Lower Saxony.

What trick did the city of Freiburg use in this case?

Just before the Christmas festivities of last year, after consultation with the regional council, the city of Freiburg had announced that at that time there would be no ruling on the applications received. However some of the permits were expiring on 31.12.2021. Therefore the city of Freiburg had seen to it that the game arcade operators concerned could not file an application for urgent legal protection with the administrative court in time. This application had to be done either just before Christmas or between Christmas and New Year. As a consequence, the operators had no time to do this.

If the operator did not file an application for urgent legal protection on time, it would probably not receive permission to continue operating in the coming months. The city of Freiburg could exclude the respective previous operator from the selection process since it would not be able to prove a seamless continued operation. Therefore the application could then be rejected because there is a children or youth facility within a radius of 500 metres. Only a few days ago we had reported that according to a study, the turnover from the German gambling industry fell by 45 % in 2021.

Attorney proceeds against the city - and succeeds

The law office Benesch & Partner represented many arcade operators and filed an application for urgent legal protection with the administrative court just before the end of the year. Nevertheless the arcade operators had to remain closed on the 1st. of January since no decision had been taken yet on their urgent applications. Meanwhile the law office had for the most part won the proceedings. As a consequence, the city of Freiburg was ordered to temporarily grant the operators of the game arcades permission to operate. An exception was made to the so-called network arcades, which had to remain closed.

Conclusion

The rigorous action of the regulatory agency of the city of Freiburg was halted. The city’s own administrative court had reprimanded the city and clarified that the arcades had to be granted temporary permission to remain open. The city of Freiburg however appears to have little interest in keeping several arcades open. The authorities there are more interested in keeping the number of arcades to the minimum possible. There is no other explanation for the actions of the city of Freiburg.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/freiburg-stadt-deutschland-straße-76217/