Something curious is happening in the City of Darebin.

A local paper, the Northcote Leader, ran a couple of stories recently (here and here) about Darebin Council’s new tough gaming policy, and the recent decision (by the council) to issue a permit for 30 new poker machines to the Stolberg Beer Cafe hotel.

It seems strange that the council would talk up their tough stance on pokies on the one hand, while approving new machines on the other. Apparently that’s because the old policy allowed the permit to be granted because there were only two objections. That’s a far cry from the people-power actions taken recently in Romsey, Jan Juc and Port Fairy!

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I believe this is an exclusive… at least, I haven’t seen any reference to this anywhere else, and believe me, I’ve been looking.

We’ve all heard the spin from the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation (VCGR) in the past few days, talking about the drop in poker machine spending, venues and the overall number of poker machines in Victoria over the past financial year. I’ve written about it here. These figures have been widely touted as proving that Victoria’s fight against problem gambling is making progress.

But the VCGR hasn’t been telling us everything they know.

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