Chap. 194.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 139 of an act entitled
an act to raise revenue for the support of the government and public
free schools and to pay interest on the public debt and to provide a
special tax for pensions as authorized by section 189 of the consti-
tution, approved April 16, 1908.

Approved March 18, 1912.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
section one hundred and thirty-nine of an act approved April
sixth, nineteen hundred and three, entitled an act to raise reve-
nue for the support of the government and public free schools
and to pay the interest on the public debt and to provide a spec-
ial tax for pensions as authorized by section one hundred and
eighty-nine of the constitution, be amended and re-enacted so
as to read as follows:

$139. Any person, firm or corporation, having on a street,
alley, or other place in the city, or any public road in any coun-
ty, or in shops, stores, hotels, boarding-houses, depots, and
public and private rooms, or any other place any where in the
State of Virginia, a slot machine of any description, into which
are dropped pennies or nickels or coins of other denominations
to dispose of chewing gum, or other articles of merchandise, ci-
garettes or intoxicating liquors, or for the purpose of operating
musical, weighing, or other devices on the nickel-in-the-slot
principle used for gain, except as a pay telephone, shall pay for
every slot machine or musical, weighing, or other devices, as the
case may be, a license tax of ten dollars per year for the use and
benefit of the State, except such vending machines as are used
solely for the sale of agricultural products or cigars, on which
shall be levied a license tax of three dollars per year for each
machine; provided, that in public and private parks such license
tax may be graduated or prorated and paid in quarterly pay-
ments of one-fourth of the same at the option of the party oab-
taining such license, except that in no case shall such license be
issued for a period of less than six months; and, provided fur-
ther, however, that nothing in this section contained shall be
construed as permitting any such person, firm or corporation’ to
keen, maintain, exhibit or operate any slot machine or other de-
vice in the operation of which the element of chance enters, and
it shall not be lawful for any commissioner of the revenue or
other officer to issue a license under this section to any such
person, firm or corporation for the keeping, maintaining, exhib-
iting or operating of any such slot machine or other device in
the operation of which the element of chance enters; the intent
of this section being to license only those machines or devices
in the operation of which the element of chance does not en-
ter, and provided, further, that this section shall not apply to
any merchant who has paid a merchant’s license, and uses such
slot machine simply for the purpose of making sales of his goods
and merchandise, and to be used inside ot his place of business,
nor shall it apply to slot machines used for the purpose of selling
individual sanitary drinking cups, or sanitary drinking cups
and natural water at one cent.

Any person, firm or corporation, having any such machine,
and failing to procure a license therefor, shall be subjected to a
fine of not less than twenty dollars nor more than fifty dollars
for each offense, and such machines shall become forfeited to
the commonwealth.