Italy’s Council of State suspends Lazio court ruling in AWP distance case

Italy's Council of State has granted an interim request from a business operator and suspended the enforceability of a ruling by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court on minimum distances from sensitive sites for AWP gaming machines installed at an existing commercial business. In an order published on 26 October 2026, the Fourth Section suspended the enforceability of Lazio Regional Administrative Court judgment 14898/2026, finding an imminent risk of serious and irreparable harm to the operator while the dispute awaits a final decision.

The case concerns a business in the municipality of Cave, in the province of Rome. It stems from a measure by the XI Comunità Montana del Lazio – Castelli Romani e Prenestini, which gave a negative outcome on the request to install and put into operation AWP gaming machines. The operator challenged the refusal before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, arguing among other grounds that the distance rules under Lazio regional law 5/2013 should not apply to existing commercial businesses where the machines had long been installed.

The administrative court upheld the appeal and annulled the Comunità Montana's measure for defective investigation and reasoning in identifying sensitive sites. It rejected, however, the ground concerning the inapplicability of minimum distances to pre-existing businesses. That passage led to the appeal to the Council of State. According to the operator, annulment of the refusal for procedural shortcomings did not secure the substantive result sought, namely definitive exclusion of the distance rules or, in the alternative, a finding that the administration's power to block installation of the machines had been exhausted.

In support of the interim request, the operator cited the economic consequences of the dispute, saying it had invested a considerable sum in buying the business, including the gaming machines, and faced serious difficulty because it could not continue putting them into operation. A new communication from the XI Comunità Montana, which began a review procedure of the file, added urgency; according to the appellant, the communication gave notice of the inadmissibility of the application and an immediate ban on installing the machines.

The Council of State held that these circumstances justified interim intervention, finding a perceptible risk of harm during the wait for a final decision. The judges gave weight to recent developments in the administrative procedure and to the indications in the communication opening the review, considering the risk cited by the operator concrete and current. The Fourth Section suspended the enforceability of the regional court's judgment while expressly leaving open any assessment of the admissibility of the appeal. The order does not resolve whether the distance rules apply to pre-existing commercial businesses, which remains the subject of the merits proceedings.