The flippers are swinging once more in Montreal, where a decades old gaming law was finally repealed to permit pinball machines in local bars. It’s been more than sixty years since pinball got a bad rap, being listed alongside slot machines as illegal devices when operated in public.
It all started back in 1955 when then-Mayor Jean Drapeau initiated a prohibition against pinball machines in public places. At that time, officials felt that pinball machines were a form of gambling, just like slot machines, and that their operation was largely controlled by organized crime.
After 22 years, the gaming law was eased somewhat. Drapeau decided that pinball machines weren’t all bad, but that they could only be played in arcades. The 1977 bylaw still prohibited pinball machines in any public place where alcohol was served.
Why The Sudden Change to Gaming Law?
 photo Sarah King-Abadi/CBC | Two years ago, Adam Kiesler opened the North Star on St-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. North Star is a pinball-themed bar, where the machines are the number one attraction for locals. Despite his full knowledge of the gaming law, Kiesler installed a wide variety of pinball machines – mostly the vintage variety from the 1950s-1980s – and went so far as to initiate leagues and tournaments. At the same time, he began lobbying for change in Bylaw 5156; the measure that had banned “amusement machines” from bars for more than six decades. He tried to get a meeting with Montreal’s Mayor Denis Coderre in 2015 to discuss the matter, but he was refused. It wasn’t until he found support from Councillor Christine Gosselin of Project Montreal’s Plateau-Mont-Royal that things finally began to go his way. Last month, after two long years of operating an illegal pinball bar, Kieser and Gossellin were successful in overturning the antiquated gaming law. “Thankfully the law was not enforced while we were open,” Kiesler said in an interview with CBC’s Homerun last week. “Technically we could have been shut down at any time.” |
As North Star’s co-owner pointed out, “The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly,” but he eventually won the legislative war.
He said his love for pinball stemmed from a very young age, and he actually named the bar after North Star Coin Machine Company, a manufacturing plant that produced pinball machines in Montreal during the 1950’s.
“I was sort of raised on pinball,” Kieslar admitted, estimating that he has “upwards of 30-something pinball machines” in his collection. But today’s newer games don’t appeal to him very much.
He’s fully aware that he could purchase new pinball machines from at least one local manufacturer, but he says it’s the nostalgia that attracts him most. The old games – the ones he grew up on – take up the majority of space along North Star’s walls.
“The pinball that I’m really most attracted to is the vintage games from the 70s and 80s,” he said. And now, thanks to the overturned gaming law, he’s certain that even more people will learn to appreciate the joy and entertainment that pinball has brought to so many over the years.
