Torch attorney talks lawsuit, accuses city of targeting business licenses

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — An attorney for Torch Electronics says the City of Springfield is targeting the business licenses of those who house casino-style gaming machines.

Those machines fall under the current ordinance passed in February 2024 but are currently being challenged in court by Torch.

The ordinance was created due to public outrage over gaming lounges and the negative impact on Springfield neighborhoods.

Attorney Chuck Hatfield said Torch supported that idea, but not the idea of their machines being looped in.

“We supported an effort to get rid of these-style parlors with illegal gaming machines that had sprouted up in Springfield. We thought that was a good idea. We thought the ordinance was overly broad and it swept up legitimate businesses and legitimate amusement devices into the ordinance,” said Hatfield. “To an extent, that ordinance has worked and accomplished what we understood the goals to be. At this point, with going after legitimate businesses, we don’t believe there’s any reason to be doing that. It kind of seems like the city has gotten dug into a position, and I’m hoping that, you know, wiser heads will eventually prevail and realize that the goal has been accomplished and the issue of crime and loitering and that sort of thing has been addressed and they don’t need to be going after these amusement devices anymore.”

Hatfield has previously interviewed with OzarksFirst and said in the past that the reasons Torch devices aren’t in violation of the ordinance is because there’s no luck, where the machine will tell you on screen just how much the game will pay out each time it’s played.

Hatfield filed a suit last week, accusing Springfield Police of illegally seizing several devices from different locations.

“The second lawsuit is about specific games that have been seized by the police, and they haven’t explained to Torch exactly why they’re being seized,” Hatfield said. “We assume they were seized because they think that it’s evidence of a crime, but we don’t have any receipts for that. We don’t have any paperwork that shows that they were seized as part of a ticket that was given to someone. We don’t even know where they are.”

As part of the ordinance, existing machines past the grace period would incur fines and more potential punishments, but Hatfield says Torch hasn’t paid for one citation.

“We haven’t racked up any fines because none of these tickets have been held to be valid at this point. They’re all sort of sitting in the pipeline. Just like anything else, the police write tickets or submit statements for probable cause on all sorts of matters that never get prosecuted, and [these] have not been in front of a judge. None of these tickets have been in front of a judge,” Hatfield said.

He said many of the locations with machines have multiple devices, however, only one was removed.

“It would be like if [police] pull over a car and there’s a whole bunch of drugs lying on the passenger seat, and [the police] take some of them and leave the rest of them there. Why would you do that? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Hatfield said.

The agreement between Torch and several local businesses is Torch occupies a space, but gives the business half of the profits.

Hatfield said if a judge rules the ordinance includes the ban on Torch’s machines, it could hurt those businesses.

“When the enforcement efforts first started, the ordinance was passed, the police start enforcing, there were a lot of the stores that were very concerned, mainly convenience stores, very concerned about it. I’m not aware of any store that shut down and pulled all their machines. I mean, generally the folks that are operating these machines have left them in place and have continued to operate them because they believe that the machines are legal and they’re important parts of the revenue structure and a lot of these convenience stores, they’ve been able to generate additional revenue,” Hatfield.

Today, Hatfield accuses the city of targeting their business licenses.

“We’ve been dealing with the licensing issues. There have been some efforts by the city to not renew licenses, and we’ve been conducting informal hearings with the businesses where the city challenges the license. It is clear in all of those cases that these are businesses that don’t have any other violations, no other ordinance problems. They’ve never had any trouble with the city. They’re cooperative,” Hatfield said. “Convenience stores are a place that the police come pretty regularly. They’re a place that the police sometimes ask for video footage of what might happen in a parking lot or something like that. These folks are all very cooperative with law enforcement, with the city. They’re upstanding businesses in Springfield, and they haven’t done anything wrong other than they chose to have an amusement device sitting in the corner.”

Todd Wilson, the COO of Rapid Roberts in Springfield says he’s one of those businesses.

“We received notice that our business licenses were not going to be renewed. We applied before the ordinance was placed. So they have been dragging their feet and then finally sent a notice that they were not going to be renewed, and so we are fighting that at this time,” Wilson said.

Wilson said it’s because of the machines.

“They’ve said it’s because of the machines. We’re a locally owned small business. We’ve been operating in Springfield for over 40 years and we’ve never had an issue with the city or law enforcement in general,” Wilson said. “So it was definitely due to the machines, but I mean, we’re committed to continuing our operations and serving the community, and we’re going to actively contest the decision that the city has made.”

There are no hearings scheduled at this time for the lawsuit between Torch and the City of Springfield over the seized gaming machines.

The suit between Torch and the City of Springfield over the ordinance itself is scheduled for a bench trial in January 2025.

OzarksFirst has reached out to city leaders and Springfield Police for a response and both say they cannot comment on pending or active litigation.

Wilson said Torch replaced the gaming machine that was taken by SPD when they learned about its removal.

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