Bingo hall to reopen after court battle

ALMOST two months after a battle over its legality forced it to close after two nights, Cork’s 1,000-seater bingo hall will reopen its doors to the public on New Year’s Day.

At the start of November, Rock Bingo tried to launch in the former Waters Glass premises in Togher. However, 30 minutes before games were due to begin the hall was raided and the bingo books seized by gardaí. That was the beginning of a High Court battle which only drew to a conclusion earlier this month.

At first the owners were successful in gaining an interim injunction, which allowed them to open for another two days.

However, they were then forced to close again after being notified that gardaí intended to carry out another raid.

The premises remained closed while the two sides attended numerous court hearings.

In those hearings, lawyers for the owners, the Barber family, argued that Superintendent Charles Barry and the gardaí were acting outside their powers.

For its part, the state argued that gardaí were entitled to carry out their duties under the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act.

Eventually, the court ruled that Rock Bingo’s activities were lawful, meaning the venue, which has had a €750,000 facelift, will open at 7pm on New Year’s Day.

Dave Barber said: “After a very frustrating number of months it gave us huge pleasure to be able to finally contact our staff and let them know that they had jobs to come to at the very start of 2012.

“They have been very patient with us and unfortunately it took us this length of time to deal with some unnecessary interference that threatened the whole enterprise.”

As part of the legislation surrounding such operations, Rock Bingo must work with beneficiary partners, which can include license holding charities and non-profit organisations.