LIBERTY - A Liberty poker room abruptly closed shop this week.
Police Chief Richard Tisone said Friday that the owners cleaned out their equipment after being served an eviction notice by their landlord at the former Holiday Inn Metroplex complex.
Tisone said he was not surprised that they packed up on Thursday. He has been threatening to file gambling charges against its owners after the club opened April 9. It closed voluntarily April 21 but reopened May 2, challenging whether gambling laws applied to its business model.
''I think it was a good business decision on their part to vacate,'' Tisone said. ''We made our intentions known. Without any question, we were going to take legal action and enforce the law.''
Gregg Rossi, the attorney who represents club owners Craig Jason McCormick of Girard and Kevin Forestal of Liberty, said it was Tisone's threats to charge the club owners or have it shut down which led to their closing.
''In essence, he ran them out of business but did not take any legal action,'' Rossi said.
Tisone said the eviction notice was served Monday. Rossi said Tisone threatened the club's landlord that they could be in trouble as well. Tisone said he never spoke to the landlord about the matter and was told by the landlord that the club was evicted because it was not paying rent.
A spokeswoman for the landlord said they would have no comment.
The Liberty club voluntarily shut its doors April 21 and sued Liberty officials after its legal counsel, attorney Mark Finamore, gave the club an opinion that zoning laws would not restrict the operation. Finamore said since owners weren't getting a cut of the gambling proceeds, it appeared to be a legal operation.
The club, which said it had about 70 members, advertised poker tournaments and ping pong to anyone who paid a $25 annual fee and a daily usage fee of $15 to $25. Membership was open to adults 21 and older.
Finamore said later he only gave the club a clean bill of health from a civil or zoning standpoint. The criminal law still has many ''gray areas,'' he said.
But Tisone got another opinion from Girard Municipal Court Prosecutor Robert Johnson that states owners simply were circumventing the law and charging membership and pay-in, or entrance, fees.
The chief called the owners and got them to voluntarily shut down or they would be raided. They then re-opened, suspecting they would be charged eventually. They reopened May 2.
Rossi would not say if there would be legal action in the future.
''We're pretty much caught in a rock and a hard place,'' Rossi said.
Tisone said he is glad the club is gone.
''We wanted to resolve this issue one way or another,'' Tisone said.
