Chap. 84.—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 the interest on the public debt, and to provide
for a special tax for pensions, as authorized by section 189 of the Con-
stitution, approved April 16, 1903, as amended and re-enacted by an
act approved March 13, 1912, as amended and re-enacted: by an act
approved March 24, 1914. (H. B. 111)

Approved March 15, 1915.

Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section one
hundred and thirty-nine of an act approved April sixteenth, nineteen
hundred and three, as amended and re-enacted by an act approved March
thirteenth, nineteen hundred and twelve, as amended and re-enacted
by an act approved March twenty-fourth, nineteen hundred and four-
teen, entitled an act to raise revenue for the support of the government
and public free schools and to pay the interest on the public debt, and
to provide a special tax for pensions, as authorized by section one hun-
dred and eighty-nine of the Constitution, be amended and re-enacted so
as to read as follows:

Section 139. Any person, firm or corporation, having on a street,
alley or other place in any city or town, or on any public road in any
county, or in shops, stores, hotels, boarding houses, depots, public or
private rooms or any other place anywhere 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 or for the purpose of operating musical or
other devices that operate on the nickel-in-the-slot principle, used for
gain, except as a pay telephone, shall pay for every such slot machine
or musical or other device, as the case may be, a State 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 State license tax of three dollars
per year for each machine; except also weighing machines and machines
used solely for the purpose of selling shoestrings, on which shall be
levied a State license tax of two dollars per year for each machine; and
except also automatic baggage or parcel checking machines or receptacles,
which are used for the storage of baggage or parcels of any character,
on which there shall be levied a State license tax of twenty-five cents
per year for each receptacle that is operated on the coin-in-the-slot
principle; provided, however, that nothing contained in this section
shall be construed as permitting any such person, firm or corporation
to keep, maintain, exhibit or operate any slot machine or other device,
in the operation of which cigarettes or intoxicating liquors are disposed
of or in which the element of chance enters, and it shall not be lawful
for any commissioner of the revenue or other officer to issue a State
license under this section to any such person, firm or corporation for the
keeping, maintaining, exhibtting or operating of any slot machine or
other device, in the operation of which cigarettes or intoxicating liquors
are disposed of or in which the element of chance enters, the intent of
this section being to license only those machines or devices, in the opera-
tion of which the element of chance does not enter, and which are not
used to dispose of cigarettes or intoxicating liquors; and provided, fur-
ther, that this section shall not apply to any merchant, who has paid
a merchant’s license tax and who uses such slot machine simplv for the
purpose of making sales of his goods and merchandise and to be used
inside of his place of business; nor shall this section apply to slot machines
that are 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 or other
device and failing to procure a State license therefor, shall be subject to a
fine of not less than twenty dollars nor more than fifty dollars for each
offense and such machine or other device shall become forfeited to the
Commonwealth.
2. All acts or parts of acts in conflict with this act are hereby
repealed.

3. By reason of the fact that this act affects the revenue of the
State for the current year, an emergency is hereby declared to exist,
and this act shall be in force from its passage.