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Staten Island NY
Bingo profits fading like smoke
Churches worried that smoking ban means fewer players and less income
to subsidize school tuition
December 30, 1999
By
HEIDI SINGER
The city has been cracking down on church bingo operations
that allow smoking, and as a result, pastors are getting tough on
the chain-smoking gamblers whose money helps to subsidize
their schools. But some church officials are worried they'll have
to hike school tuition as players take their bingo chips elsewhere.
"A majority of these people are heavy smokers and if they can't smoke, they don't come," said
Monsignor John Sarvodidio of St. Joseph's R.C. Church, Rosebank, who is still unsure what effect
the decreased revenues will have on his school. "If the government would give us the money to
subsidize our schools, we wouldn't have to do this."
But smoking isn't the only problem. During the past couple
of years, city inspectors have been coming in search of
violations of the four-year-old law against smoking in
restaurants, schools, recreational areas and workplaces -
and staying to poke around school cafeterias and ask
questions about food preparation and other possible health
code violations.
In the end, at least three churches incurred fines of several
hundred to thousands of dollars for permitting smoking and
serving food without a license.
"We were unaware we needed some kind of permit to sell
food, and apparently we did need that," said Monsignor
Richard Guastella of Holy Rosary R.C. Church, South Beach,
which was fined $10,000 in May for smoking and other health
code violations.
Church lawyers got the fine reduced to $500 by showing Holy Rosary was operating in "good
faith," according to the pastor. Now, he said, the church has all the right food permits and its
bingo operation is strictly non-smoking.
"Frankly I think it's the right thing to do because we're using the school building, and I honestly
think, whether people agree with it or not, it's for their own health," said Monsignor Guastella.
But doing the right thing can be bitter medicine, Holy Rosary officials learned. Revenues
plummeted beginning in June, from an average of $7,000 to $8,000 to no more than $4,400 a
weekend, according to the monsignor.
The church depends on its bingo operations for almost one-quarter of its school's operating
expenses. As a result, school fees of about $1,700 a year, depending on the number of children
in the family, might increase by up to $10 a month per child next year, he said.
As word spread over the summer that Holy Rosary had been fined thousands of dollars, other
pastors began to worry. Across Staten Island, churches began cracking down on smokers,
according to church officials. Numbers dwindled, but to tolerable levels, they believed, because
it was still warm enough for smokers to take breaks outside.
But cool weather brought nasty surprises, as another round of players departed for the smoker-
friendly commercial halls in Brooklyn, according to some church bingo operators. Quietly, for a
short time, they say, the churches tried bringing smoking back, but by then it was too late.
St. Charles, in Oakwood, which dropped from 190 players a week to 170 over the summer, is
now averaging 120. The church is barely breaking even and may shut down Its bingo night
altogether, which could put pressure on school tuition.
St. Joseph's has been hit with $500 worth of fines for smoking and food violations in the past
year. But Monsignor Servodidio says he's appealing them and hasn't paid yet.
"They do everything possible to make life difficult," he sighed. "How do I tell a 70 or 80 year-old
woman she's got to stop smoking when she's been doing it all her life? I can accept the problem,
but it's not something we can convert overnight."
St. Joseph's School offers tuition for $45 a month, and proceeds from the church's Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday bingo operations make up a third of the school's budget.
"I don't have a rich clientele," Monsignor Servodidio said. "But we want to see that the kids
get a good Catholic education, so we're prepared to subsidize them."
The way the monsignor sees it, the city is being too harsh. These days, a team of
inspectors responds to a complaint about smoking, he said, and they are as likely to
notice the hot dogs served without a food license as the smoking.
"I don't know whether it's just harassment or whether they're trying to do their jobs," he said.
John Gadd, spokesman for the city Health Department, refused to respond to these complaints.
And several Health Department officials were unable to produce a list of Staten Island bingo
establishments that received fines in 1999, or to confirm several specific cases.
"Business establishments, including religious institutions, which [received] fines for violating the
Smoke-Free Air Act, were investigated in response to complaints made by members of the
public," he said.
