Leaders of community and legislators in northern and western Philadelphia have deep reservations regarding the financing of SEPTA with revenues from the proposed tax on “skill games”, long regulated devices for common games in their districts.
The poorest inhabitants of the city who are Jacqueline Brodie-Davis, a block captain who lived in Western Philadelphia, should not bear the burden of saving public transport, said Jacqueline Brodie-Davis, a block captain who lived in Western Philadelphia and saw.
“This is not good for the community. This is not good for our people,” said Brodie-Davis about the concentration of skill games that spread in corner stores, gas stations and bars around her neighborhood.
But skill games are offered by one of the few modern income streams that the Republicans Senate showed interest in the exploit of septa and other public transit systems in the state, other proposals for financing Democrats, such as legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana.
In connection with how to tax games and shape current budget negotiations, the 2025 report generated in the town hall in Philadelphia circulated in Harrisburg among legislators from the city. The report showed unregulated and indefinite games for games strongly concentrated in districts with lower income, higher unemployment and greater violence using weapons.
According to the report, only 3% of companies in Philadelphia in richer districts have skill games, and 50% of companies in poorer districts.
“Several of my voters, communities and corner stores were full of bullets from assaults and matters that go wrong, all focused on skill games,” said Rep. Amen Brown, a democrat representing part of West Philadelphia.
Skill games have been operating in a legal gray zone in Pennsylvania for over a decade, with a matter of their compliance with the law Now before the State Supreme Court. The Democratic Mayor of CHELELLE L. Parker signed the city ban in February 2024, arguing that the machines encouraged a crime using violence. The Court of the Community of Nations raised the ban in December.
Parker refused to comment on the perspective of using revenues from machines for financing public transport.
Choice between transit and security
The state budget, which took place this year, is particularly arduous, because Pennsylvania is in the face of a significant budget shortage and is to spend $ 5.5 billion more than this tax year. The best legislators and Shapiro still meet behind closed doors to negotiate the contract, but Septa plans to implement their service reductions on August 24 if they do not obtain additional state financing by Thursday.
The expected budget shortage worth many billion dollars caused the state to look for modern ways to generate additional revenues to finance programs from transit for health care.
On his pitch, Shapiro suggested that funds from 52% tax on skill games, estimating that he would generate $ 369 million in the first year, as one of the ways to cover the budget deficit. He also proposed a legalizing and taxation of recreational marijuana, which has since been knocked down by the leaders of the GOP Senate.
Since then, skills have appeared as the only potential source of the state to generate additional revenues that both parties can agree.
However, supporters and legislators in Philadelphia, such as Brown, are worried that revenues from transit financing skills can lead to increased presence of machines, and then more brutal crime in their vicar.
According to the city’s findings, police districts with higher shooting rates have more skill machines. According to the Police Department Philadelphia, between 2021 and 2023, five killings, 20 shootings and 43 drug arrests from three “burdensome companies” on one Frankford Avenue block, according to the Police Department in Philadelphia.
During the hearing of the City Council in 2023 on the provisions regarding prohibiting skill games in Philadelphia, except for casinos or bars, deputy police commissioner Francis Healy called the machine “a magnet for nuisance and criminal activity.”
Brown, who helped the author’s legislation regarding the prohibition of skill games in the city, said that the machines “take over the blocks of community through the block.”
Brown suggested possible regulations, such as requirement from security officers and creating a separate section in stores where people can have access to games.
She said that Brodie-Davis, a block captain of West Philadelphia, is afraid to enter stores at her home because of a violent environment that created skills. Instead, he does shopping at the Shoprite grocery store at 52nd Street near Parkside Avenue, a 20-minute septa bus ride.
In Kensington, games can be easier to find than fresh products, said Nicole Moy, a member of the Kensington Advisory Committee.
Last Wednesday at the C&L supermarket and wholesale at Kensington Avenue, the basket of thunderous potatoes flanked four glowing games. On the same street, the Red-Biała road warned against a withdrawn service for the 3rd Septa bus.
“Financing septa is crucial. I just think that it should not be on the back of the community,” said Moy.
“Important” service without a certain source of income
Republicans of the Senate were historically resistant to additional public transport funds because they are careful about expenses, especially an agency, which argue that they need funds that other areas of the state need.
Without any additional state funds, SEPTA said that he was planning to deal with an annual structural deficit of $ 213 million by collecting tariffs by more than 20% and reducing almost half of his services, starting from August 24.
State House controlled by a democratic He again adopted a transit expenditure account For the fifth time on Monday, which adapted to the democratic governor Josh Shapiro to raise the amount of sales tax revenues assigned to transit and add the GOP Senate language to raise supervision over SEPTA and the regional transit Pittsburgh.
Shapiro proposed to transfer public transport an additional 292 million dollars, including 165 million dollars per Septa, on its February budget. Shapiro called sept financing and other “important” transit systems. Last week, he also encouraged Philadelphians to call their state senators – including the only Republican city senator, state senator Joe Picozzi – to support transit financing throughout the state.
When asked if skill games should be considered a transit financing mechanism, a democratic senator Vincent Hughes (D., Philadelphia) said that the best policy would contain transit expenditure account He went home in June, but “if there are other ideas that people may have, we must take them in a conversation so that they can be implemented” before the date of SEPTA on August 14.
