TAR Brescia suspends Bergamo police revocation of VLT hall licence

The TAR Lombardia's Brescia section has upheld a precautionary application by the operators of a gaming hall in Trescore Balneario, near Bergamo, and suspended the Bergamo police headquarters' revocation of the licence for the installation of VLT machines. The court's single-judge precautionary decree suspends the contested measures and allows both gaming and food and drink service to resume. The ruling is not a final decision on the lawfulness of the revocation.

The revocation was issued on 11 August 2026 under article 10 of the TULPS, against a licence granted under article 88 of the same consolidated text for VLT equipment governed by article 110, paragraph 6, letter b). It followed two inspection reports by the local police dated 19 June and 14 July 2026. During checks carried out between 7am and 7.30am, officers recorded a prevalence of food and drink service, with a steady flow of customers interested only in the bar and no corresponding use of the gaming room. The police headquarters said this indicated that the relationship between the main and ancillary activities had been altered, and added the absence of signs and signage identifying the gaming hall. It also raised the possibility that the gaming activity was being concealed, potentially to evade rules against problem gambling, including the ban on access by minors, the time bands in which play is interrupted and the requirement that premises with AWP and VLT machines be recognisable.

The applicants, represented by lawyers Luca Giacobbe and Livio Sannino, argued that the Comune of Trescore Balneario had not regulated the opening and closing hours of gaming halls. They denied any inversion of the relationship between the main and ancillary activities, citing the prevalence of gaming revenue over food and drink revenue. On the alleged lack of identifying elements, they pointed to an external sign and contested that the bar could serve as cover to draw minors or other vulnerable people towards gaming. They also invoked proportionality, arguing that any need for greater separation between the two activities could have been addressed through specific conditions rather than revocation of the licence.

In its decree, the court held that the presence of a gaming room and a food and drink business at the same time does not necessarily mean the two services are used equally throughout opening hours. It stated that "non ha quindi alcun valore sintomatico il fatto che in una determinata fascia oraria il bar sia più affollato della sala da gioco", adding that a greater presence of bar customers in the early morning appears normal. The court also said that, in the absence of specific local rules, there is no basis for supposing the bar is used to circumvent the obligation to deactivate AWP and VLT machines in certain time bands. It noted that any municipal regulation could provide for deactivation of the machines and monitoring of this, without necessarily extending gaming time restrictions to the food and drink service.

On the relationship between the two activities, the court said the bar must retain its ancillary character until an autonomous food and drink licence is issued. Demonstrating an actual inversion of that relationship, however, requires an overall assessment taking in several elements, including a comparison of revenues; the sole fact that bar customers outnumber gaming room customers in a given time band is not enough. On the alleged role of the bar in directing customers towards gaming, the court said such a finding would require evidence of episodes in which minors or other vulnerable people actually moved from the food and drink premises to the gaming room, as well as proof of a failure to report and physically separate the spaces. In this case, the local police had limited themselves to recording the number of customers in the bar and the simultaneous lack of use of the gaming room. According to the decree, the applicants also showed that the gaming hall was adequately signposted outside, and the floor plans submitted appear to confirm separation and specialisation of the interior spaces, possibly improvable through further signage prescribed by the police headquarters.

The court found the conditions for granting the single-judge precautionary measures and suspended the contested acts. The precautionary phase will continue at the council chamber hearing on 11 November 2026, when the tribunal will examine the dispute again.