Prithee, attend: Lamp the goods, dig the scene...

Six Shooter eight-liner biz back in style

Waco – As a tax free business, it's not bad. A decent location can gross a cool 1 to 1.2 million per year with ease.

Masquerading as a smoke shop, a convenience store, a place to buy a beer or a jug, these places have bars on the windows, placards obsuring the view from outside, but allowing an attendant ample opportunity to see who is coming, the store fronts are spotted in strip malls throughout the city.

Let's take a look at 2516 W. Waco Drive, “Hookah City 1.”

The room where players operate the gambling machines has its windows masked by venetian blinds, the other, a merchandising room offering tobacco products, beverages and snacks, is a storefront with windows partially obscured by placards and signs.

You have to be buzzed inside the front door. Once inside, you may play to your heart's content. Credit may be arranged through jewelry pawn, car title loan, pay check loan, or other creative means of digging up some cash.

Free sodas, candy, snacks are part of the ambient appeal as patrons sit on swivel stools and dial up such games as keno, poker, black jack, and the like.

The machines blink, buzz, beep, and ring-a-ding-ding their robotic signals to the world – win, lose, or draw. Plenty of action, as low as 25 cents a pop.

It's a two-bit world that adds up to big cash – as much as $20,000 a machine each week. One may easily see there are in excess of 20 machines inside the room.

In the count room, observers watch carefully from behind one-way mirrors, surveil the scene on video screens, and load up couriers with bags of cash for deposit.

These places are routinely robbed – an event which is rarely reported to police.

Why bother? Is it a matter of record? Is the eight-liner business legal, or illegal? 

As they say in the big city, the information is classified. Unaccredited media need not apply. 

Then there is “Smoke City,” located near the corner of Sanger at Lake Air in a strip mall shared with a tattoo parlor and lots of vacant, dusty storefronts.

Both Locations are listed by the McLennan Appraisal District under the names of shell corporations. The Waco Drive location is owned by an organization named ArkPro, appraised at $66,439. Located between 25th and 26th Streets, it is staffed by an attractive brunette with an athletic build on a slender frame who carefully peruses players before she buzzes them inside the security door. In 2011, the location was listed as owned by Five Star Funding, appraised at $67,093.

The matter is very political. A former principal for local global mortgage packager First City Financial Corporation, J.R. Hawkins is the campaign treasurer for the Randy Plemons for Sheriff Committee. He was for many years the treasurer for Buddy Skeen, McLennan County Tax Assessor-Collector, who is facing multiple indictments for fraudulent activities in his office accounts.

His son-in-law Tony Martin was convicted of gambling with the 8-liner machines in a Waco district court in the recent past. When state officials confiscated the illegal gambling machines, Mr. Hawkins obtained his title to them as a lender with an instrument secured by a lien on the commercial properties. Mr. Martin received a probated of 10 years, and has since been released by a court on the convictions obtained from a 16-count felony indictment.