The city's failed attempt to keep minors from playing violent video games in public arcades has cost taxpayers $318,000 in legal fees. In a consent judgment approved Monday by U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton, city officials agreed to pay the money to the video game industry for lawyers' fees and other costs.
The heads of the industry groups that successfully challenged the law's constitutionality said they had been "totally vindicated" and hoped the penalty would discourage other governments from trying to enact similar bans. "To recover more than $300,000 in legal fees from the city is the icing on the case, especially since the city threatened that we would not only lose, but also pay its legal fees," said Jack Kelleher, executive director of the Amusement and Music Operators Association.
The judgment nearly doubles the city's cost for trying to enact the ban, the first major ordinance of Mayor Bart Peterson's administration. The city has spent about $400,000 on outside legal work to draft and defend the ordinance. The combined cost is slightly above what the city spent in 2000 to administer recreation programs, slightly less than what it spent for neighborhood parks and not quite three times what it budgeted for historic preservation of neighborhoods.
City Attorney Scott Chinn said the expenses were justified because the ban increased parental awareness of the games. "It has simply been incredible how much input and support the city received," Chinn said. Among the backers is Indianapolis retiree Mary E. Douglas, who said taxpayers foot the bill for many "nonsensible things," but that the ban was a worthwhile goal.
"They shouldn't be allowed to play those games, period," Douglas said of minors. But Dave Danz, owner of the Indianapolis-based courier company Double D Express, called the ordinance "a ridiculous waste of money."
"It's up to us as parents to teach our children values. However well-intentioned it might be, it's not a function of the government to intervene," Danz said. "We're blowing taxpayer money at a time when we need to be looking at things like sewers."
The law would have required minors to show parental consent before playing violent or sexually explicit video games in public arcades. City officials said research showed a link between children's anti-social or violent behavior and media violence.
But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled no evidence backed that up, and said attempting to shield children from exposure to violent images would be "not only quixotic, but deforming." The U.S. Supreme Court declined in October to hear the city's appeal.
Source
South Blend Tribune
