The leader of the USR deputies, Diana Stoica, and Senator Ovidiu Paraschivescu presented, on Tuesday, two interactive maps that highlight the size of the scourge of gambling in Romania.
"In 2022, when (...) we submitted the first law from the "No Păcănele" package, the "No Păcănele near schools" law, we did it because both we and the people who wrote us messages on this subject were telling us that there were very, very many păcănele in the vicinity of educational institutions, in the vicinity of parks, of course also in residential neighborhoods, but the very big problem that parents and children were reporting at the time was that of proximity to educational institutions. Following an initiative taken by ONJN to provide minimal transparency of authorized operators throughout the country, our colleagues from Brasov - Ovidiu Paraschivescu, deputy for Brasov - worked on these interactive maps so that everyone could see the extent of this scourge. ONJN basically published a table on the website, a list of operators and with the location of these devices and we wanted it to be as clear as possible for everyone, so we created these maps.
The first map refers to the number of machines, Diana Stoica specified, adding that the map shows, among other things, both safe and unsafe schools, namely those that have at least one gambling hall less than 300 meters away.
According to the deputy, in Bucharest, "the congestion is very high", being "all red" on the map.
"Yesterday, when we organized that press conference at Gorjului Square, in which we announced the submission of a decision by the General Council of the Bucharest Municipality to ban all machines within the Bucharest area, we found that there are also certain discrepancies between what ONJN published in their database and what exists in reality. We chose Gorjului Square because right there, across the street from the square, we have five gambling operators on the ground floor of a single block. Where hundreds of Bucharest people live, there are five lined up at a distance of 180 meters, 240 steps. Of course, there are also a lot of schools there. (...) And here, at Gorjului Square, based on the information published by ONJN that we have taken over in this map, you see that only three gambling halls appear here. In reality there are five of them. We ask ONJN to either update its database or improve the geo-location, if it is a device location error. It is very important for all of us to see this map, because many times you have noticed that the industry tries to tell us that children do not enter these rooms, but we see that they are strategically placed to be right next to schools. Obviously, children enter there", emphasized Diana Stoica.
In the context of the recent commitment made at the USR Congress regarding protecting communities "from the scourge of gambling", Diana Stoica showed that all mayors and local councilors of the USR will submit Local Council decisions to prohibit or limit these devices on children's way to school and on people's way to work and, in this context, the second map shows the progress made in this area of Local Council decisions.
Deputy Ovidiu Paraschivescu, deputy for Brasov and member of the IT Committee, who presented the second map, specified that it was the work of a 21-year-old volunteer from Transylvania University in Brasov, and "the Romanian state has refused to put information about the places where these activities can be carried out in such a digital form for anyone."
"Now that the Romanian Government is empowering mayors and local councils to choose how to protect their communities, I considered that, although the fight in Parliament through our initiative continues, in reality, on the ground, we must see that this ordinance is truly implemented. I happen to be from Brasov, but I am glad that Brasov County has already, out of seven localities, submitted projects either through mayors or through local councilors, for five of them. So, in the coming period, five local councils will be able to decide whether to give up this type of dependency, and we, as parliamentarians, believe that we have the obligation to petition all mayors, even where the USR does not have local councilors, and to ask them if they assume, on behalf of their communities, to protect them in the future, by submitting their own projects. (...) We ambitious and we decided to do our own monitoring. That is why we invite any local councilor in the country who wants to put their work here, to announce us and in time this green map should fill Romania. (...) We rely on PSD and PNL to do what they have promised for a long time in Parliament. We do not stop, we do not negotiate the financial health and people's lives and we will cleanse Romania of the sins, because Romania did not have to be a casino," Paraschivescu conveyed.
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