By: David Sanderson
Better than shady land deals and contentious severance packages: When the city council in Oakland, Calif., convened last summer, one of the items on the agenda was a proposal to repeal a bylaw that forbade residents of that burg from playing pinball.
Oakland’s ban, which council members voted unanimously to lift, dated back to the Dirty Thirties — an era when pinball was viewed in many circles as a form of gambling.
“Pinball was illegal in lots of places for years,” says Rick Exner, a Winnipegger who manages an online forum (www.wpgpinball.forumotion.ca), which caters to pinball aficionados in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. “Pinball wasn’t allowed in New York (City) until 1976, I believe, and Chicago, too, even though that’s where most of the machines were being built.”
