THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407170059
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Liquor and Virginia Lottery tickets will be available under the same roof in a few weeks, and not everyone's happy about it.
Beginning Aug. 1, scratch-off games will be sold at retail outlets run by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Starting Oct. 1, Lotto tickets will be offered as well.
The General Assembly authorized lottery sales at ABC stores to help boost profits from the state numbers games, but it's not a popular idea in all corners.
``I think you really are making a mistake putting them in liquor sales,'' Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III, D-Richmond, told Virginia Lottery officials Friday at a Senate Finance Committee meeting. ``People already have one bad habit. Now, they'll have two bad habits.''
The finance committee chairman, Sen. Hunter B. Andrews, D-Hampton, sarcastically countered: ``We're so noble today!''
Instant tickets will be sold in about 231 of 241 stores, on-line tickets in nearly 150 stores.
Net revenues from lottery sales at state liquor stores are expected to reach $1 million in the current budget year, and $4.1 million the following year, said Richard G. Wilkinson, acting director of the lottery.
Some lawmakers also questioned a decision to sell scratch-off and on-line tickets at about 190 Hardee's restaurants.
Lambert said he was concerned that ticket machines in Hardee's will be too great a temptation for minors. Virginians must be 18 or older to play the lottery.
As a precaution, the lottery department requires the machines be in plain view so restaurant personnel can monitor who uses them, Wilkinson said.
The operator of the Hardee's stores, Boddie-Noell Enterprises Inc., collects a 5 percent commission on sales, just as convenience stores and other traditional lottery vendors do.
The lottery's total net income for the fiscal year ending June 30 was $302.3 million, up less than half of 1 percent. The lottery had sales of $875.5 million for the fiscal year.
Though sales were off slightly from previous years, income was up because of cost-cutting, Wilkinson said. by CNB