Souths bid to ban pokies gets voted down

SOUTH Sydney Leagues club has delivered a humiliating defeat to Peter Homes a Court and Russell Crowe's proposal to ban poker machines - just three members supported it among more than 100 who voted yesterday.

"This was a vision that a lot of people embraced," said Souths Leagues Club president Bill Alexiou-Hucker yesterday, after the vote.

"No one - not one charity, no corporations, no community that flooded the football club with congratulations over a no-poker machine venue - ever contacted me to see how they could help us.

"We were left to do it. It was going to be a very tough ask.

"The board felt it couldn't offer the members the sorts of things that it wants to without the poker machines."

But Mr Holmes a Court said it was not a blow to his plan, which was backed by the actor, to completely ban poker machines.

He praised the board and said despite the defeat of the no-pokies resolution, the club still planned to divert revenue streams away from poker machines.

"Their plan is about good food and beverage and a gathering place and de-emphasising revenue from poker machines."

Yesterday's vote, he said, showed that "very significant progress had been made".

Souths has 60 poker machines, which generate half the club's annual income of $3.5 million when it is operating. The club is closed for redevelopment.

The idea was to sell the poker machine licences and use the proceeds to reshape the club so that it could rely on income from renting out facilities, for example, to generate the revenue shortfall.

Mr Holmes a Court had said it was not ideal for the club to rely on pensioners and others on a fixed income to put money through poker machines at the club.

Several club members yesterday said it was up to them to spend their money how they wanted, and not up to "some blow-in from the west" to tell them not to play poker machines, was how one member put it.

"It was nice in theory, but as a business practice, it was suicidal," Souths member and Katoomba publican Sean Glassford said.

"As a businessman, someone who runs a hotel, while they're an evil thing, they also provide entertainment for people and provide me, in my business, with a revenue stream that I can put back into entertainment.

"It's good in theory [to ban poker machines] but you'd have to have another business plan to generate that sort of money."

One of the three club members at yesterday's general membership meeting to vote against poker machines was Col McCann, who said there were still companies that wanted to invest in a club without poker machines, "but we've never asked the question".

Mr Alexiou-Hucker said the rebuilt Souths Leagues club still hopes to be ready for business "by January-February next year". The development application for the proposed redevelopment is close to being completed and the financing is also in place, he said.

After his return home last night from the Souths victory over Manly Mr Holmes a Court, who stood down as executive chairman this year, said: "Utopia exists a long way from here and we're just trying to make progress every day."

Sydney Morning Herald

News Added: 18 August, 2008

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