European Union Kotor: It was proposed that casinos and slot machines operate 24 hours a day, without any explanation

The European Union (EU) Councilors' Club in the Kotor Municipal Assembly (MA) announced that the Municipality of Kotor, through amendments to the Decision on Working Hours, has proposed that casinos and facilities with slot machines can operate 24 hours a day, throughout the year, without explaining why such a provision was introduced.

The European Union states that the change in the decision was subject to a public debate for eight days at the end of July, and that the debate has since been concluded.

"That amendment states that casinos and facilities with slot machines can operate from 00:00 to 24:00. Non-stop. All year round. Why - it doesn't say anywhere. There is not a single sentence in the entire explanation for that provision," the party stated.

They claim that no law obliged the Municipality of Kotor to introduce such a rule, but that "someone simply decided so."

"So, we are allowed to gamble twenty-four hours a day. Come on, people. In Kotor, everyone has a time when they have to turn off the lights — the shop, the hairdresser, the cafe, the library. A caterer who wants to work just two hours longer goes through an administrative ordeal: request, approvals, deadlines... Casinos get that right with a single sentence, and without any restrictions. Only gambling would not have a time when it has to stop," the European Union points out.

In that party, they ask what kind of message is being sent in that way.

"We are building a system in which gambling is allowed twenty-four hours a day, without a single explanation, without a single written sentence about what it is for and for whom. In a city that struggles with water, garbage, traffic and parking, with problems that citizens suffer every day and for which they have not received an answer for years, someone has found the time and will to deal with exactly that. We are not asking anything complicated. We are just asking who requested this and why, and why it should not have been written," the statement reads.

The European Union is demanding that the provision be withdrawn.

"And if it does come before the Assembly, let the person who proposes it come out before the citizens and say out loud why Kotor needs automatic rifles at four in the morning," they conclude in the statement.