Pinball was banned in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City for decades and . . . wait, what?
All of the anti-arcade pearl clutching isn’t surprising because, well, the older generation is always suspicious of youth culture, especially when it’s paired with rapidly changing technology (hence modern parents freaking out about their kids’ addiction to the online video game Fortnite). But it’s one thing for games to be frowned on, and another for them to be illicit.
Pinball might have been legalized in Chicago in 1976 if not for the efforts of a very familiar face on the City Council. That would be Alderman Ed Burke—yes, the same guy who rules the 14th Ward today. Mayor Daley was in favor of lifting it and then taxing it—his plan to tax individual machines and licensing operators promised to raise $1 million annually. But during a finance committee hearing about the proposal in November 1976, Burke helped delay it. He complained that organized crime in Chicago would benefit from the legalization of pinball and feared that schoolchildren would spend all of their “lunch money.”
The city of Chicago officially legalized pinball in January 1977—after 40 years. Gary Stern, the CEO of Chicago-based pinball manufacturer Stern Pinball Inc., told me that the pinball companies tried to convince the city that it was a game of skill—and it helped when former alderman Dick Mell realized that two pinball companies in particular (Bally and Williams) were in his ward.
Things weren’t necessarily smooth for pinball after it was legalized. Two days before the big “Super Shooter” National Pinball Tournament at the Playboy Club on the Magnificent Mile in 1978, city and state revenue agents seized 23 machines because they didn’t have $75 licenses. Still, Roger Sharpe is quoted by the Tribune saying he was “thrilled” to play in Chicago “without the social stigmas that used to be attached to it.”
In 1981, Alderman Patrick Huels proposed an ordinance to restrict pinball by age—making it illegal for children under the age of 18 to play. Huels cited Bridgeport as a community that was adversely affected by new pinball establishments. “These places have become nests for gangs and drugs,” Huels said according to a July 1981 Tribune article.
