Request By:
Ms. Vicky Napier
Deputy Clerk
Perry County Clerk's Office
P. O. Box 150
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter raising a question concerning an application for a permit to operate a place of entertainment.
On the application in question, it is stated that, "The nature of the place of entertainment is a place where people assemble to eat and drink, and/or dance. " As we understand your letter, the application has caused some confusion because it was actually submitted to obtain a permit to install and use a pin ball machine at the location in question, rather than to operate a place where people assemble to eat, drink and dance.
You ask whether this office can give permission to the applicant for the permit to install the pin ball machine or whether the clerk's office may change the application to read "a place where people assemble to play a pin ball machine. "
Some of the difficulties in the situation you have presented may stem from the fact that the application form for the permit to operate a place of entertainment has printed on it the sentence, "The nature of the place of entertainment is a place where people assemble to cat and drink, and/or dance. " The definition of a "place of entertainment" as set forth in KRS 231.010 is much broader than a place to eat, drink and dance and that statute provides in its entirety as follows:
"As used in this chapter, 'place of entertainment' means a roadhouse, place offering intoxicating or nonintoxicating drinks for salc, tourist camp or place of public entertainment at which people assemble to eat, drink, dance, bathe, or engage in any game or amusement, or any place having therein or thereon any person engaging in the practice of being a medium, clairvoyant, soothsayer, palmist, phrenologist, spiritualist, or like activity, or one who, with or without the use of cards, crystal ball, tea leaves, or any other object or device, engages in the practice of telling the fortune of another; but this last clause shall not be construed to apply to persons pretending to tell fortunes as part of any play, exhibition, fair or amateur show presented or offered by any religious, charitable, or benevolent institution. It shall not mean a private home at which bona fide guests are entertained, drive-in theaters, places of business conducted only as filling stations for motor vehicles or grocery stores, nor transient or temporary entertainment such as circuses, carnivals and county fairs."
The definition of a "place of entertainment" includes a place at which people assemble to engage in any game or amusement. Thus, a place where a pin ball machine is located would normally be considered a "place of entertainment" and subject to the permit requirements of KRS Chapter 231. See OAG 82-40, copy enclosed.
KRS 231.020 states in part that no place of entertainment shall be operated outside the corporate limits of a city unless its owner or manager secures a permit from the county judge/executive of the county where the place of entertainment is located. A person who desires to operate a place of entertainment is required by KRS 231.040 to file an application for a permit to do so with the county clerk.
KRS 231.060 provides in part that the county clerk shall publish a notice pursuant to KRS Chapter 424 that the application for a permit has been filed. In the situation with which you are concerned, a notice has already been published that the particular applicant has filed for a permit to operate a place of entertainment where people assemble to eat and drink, and/or dance.
KRS 231.070 requires the county attorney to investigate the applicant and file a written report with the county judge/executive recommending the granting or denial of the permit. Thirty days after the date on which the application for a permit was filed the county judge/executive shall hear evidence in support of or in opposition to the granting of the permit. See KRS 231.080. KRS 231.090 sets forth the provisions concerning an appeal from the decision of the county judge/executive denying or granting the permit.
There are no provisions in KRS Chapter 231 which authorize the Attorney General's Office to grant permission to someone to operate a place of entertainment as that is the function of the county judge/executive. There are no provisions authorizing the county clerk's office to change or amend the application for a permit to operate a place of entertainment to include pin ball machines when the application does not indicate that particular kind of a place of entertainment.
Under the fact situation you have presented the application seeks a permit to operate a place of entertainment where people assemble to eat, drink and dance. That application does not include permission to operate a place where people assemble to play a pin ball machine which is a place of entertainment under the statute that cannot be operated without a permit. The original application will have to be withdrawn by the applicant or denied by the county judge/executive, and a new application submitted, if the intent is to operate a place of entertainment where people assemble to play a pin ball machine.