Look around Good Times’ spiderweb-decorated porch, and you can’t miss the cigarette smoke, colorful drinks and knock-off designer purses. But what you may not see is the illegal gambling that takes place at the bar on a Friday night.
The pool players who hide their wagered money in inconspicuous slots in pool tables are officially breaking the law, according to Eugene’s city code. However, no police officers ardently look for illegal billiard betting, partly because no one is complaining and also because the laws were used to curb a social gambling craze in the 1970s – that turned some bars into dangerous hangouts and fostered other criminal activities.
“There used to be a back-room bar called ‘step-down-a-go-go’ in the Tiffany Building on Eighth Street; it had gambling tables, a gentleman’s night and ‘the rules there were at best illegal,’ said Eugene police officer Randy Ellis. “I remember we went in there one night, and a half-dressed woman was leading a donkey on a rope up from the basement … and they used to hire bikers as bouncers there.”
Over the years, Eugene’s city code book has amassed hundreds of pages as laws accumulate. But the truth is that a few of the laws are relatively obsolete, some are just obscure, and many don’t get enforced unless a complaint is filed such as the gambling laws.
While those rowdy days of donkeys and card tables may be long gone, those gambling regulations remain on the books.
According to Eugene’s ordinances, playing cards, pool or dice behind a screen, in a booth or a back room is illegal. And if someone plays a billiards game or goes bowling for money or anything else of value, he or she could be handed a $500 fine – although it is very rare.
“I’ve never seen anyone arrested for betting, and I’ve never even heard of anyone being fined, either,” according to Travis, a pool player at Good Times who would only give his first name because of his involvement in what he called “big money games.”
While he said he never plays for money at Good Times, Travis does bet on matches at Mulligan’s Pub near Willamette Street and 28th Avenue. But the “big money games” he participates in are held in Springfield, he said.
A number of other city laws in the book may seem silly, but were at one time legitimately needed.
One such law states that no person can possess a dangerous animal. In 2005, police and animal control officers responded to a report of a “small alligator” at large wandering the streets near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard., said Eugene Police spokeswoman Melinda Kletzok. They showed up and found a four-foot-long crocodile named “Tank” who had escaped from his cage, she said.

Also, the recently adopted ordinance 4.740 addresses a new pugilist craze, making it illegal for a person to engage in or promote “extreme fighting.”
“Most laws are brought up by community members or business,” said Ellis.
A frustrated downtown community complained enough about public safety and the condition of the area that a pair of ordinances made it illegal to walk a dog or skateboard down portions of Alder Street or East 13th Avenue. The area extending west from the Duck Store to Pearl Street forms a large rectangle where the pet’s owner can be fined $250 for walking his or her dog, and skateboarders may be slapped with a $100 fine.
“Years ago, this place was a disaster where every dirt-bag hippie had a puppy on a string … one time I counted 27 dogs on 13th Avenue from Alder to Kincaid. They’d leave the dogs unattended somewhere to go and smoke a bowl,” Ellis said.
The potential for danger sometimes resulted in hazardous conditions, including one incident in which a little 8- or 9-year-old girl got wrapped up by the leashes from two unattended dogs as they were chasing each other in circles around her legs, Ellis said. She fell to the ground, and the dogs where fighting each other to where “it got pretty ugly,” he added.
And beware, it’s also illegal for a pet to be off its leash and not controlled in a public area, and not cleaning up a dog’s solid waste can fetch a hefty fine.
Ellis recounted one event in the 1980s in which an elderly lady “stepped in dog crap, slipped and fell off the curb, and broke her hip.” The laws went a long way in addressing the issues of livability in the community and had a big impact on personal safety, he added.

Old and Outdated Laws

Certain city laws, however, have long outgrown their usefulness or are just plain archaic.
According to the city code in section 4.460, it is illegal to park or tether a horse on a street or in a public park, and the chain links on blocks that were specifically for horse parking no longer decorate downtown.
Another set of city ordinances developed around the public’s safety in the old downtown mall – except the mall no longer exists, and the laws still do. The area referred to as the “heart of downtown,” designated the Downtown Activity Zone, is chock full of unordinary rules.
Climb a tree or any structure more than six feet high here, and you’ll be in violation. Leave an animal unattended or walk into a landscaped planting area, and you could be subject to a $500 fine. And if someone picks a flower in the Activity Zone and receives a citation but plucks another one, they could receive a $1,000 fine and a one-year jail sentence.
Of course, these laws can still be enforced, but imposing them may be more of a detriment to the flow of life as usual in the city should the police choose to do so.
“You have to think, is enforcing the letter of the law going to cause a much larger problem,” he said, adding that a group of motorcycle officers enforcing all the traffic violations at the intersection of 13th Avenue and Kincaid Street where the Duck Store is located would create traffic pandemonium.
“The cars would be at dead stop all the way down the street,” Ellis said, “but it’s probably the most unsafe safe intersection in Eugene.”

Lack of Personnel

On a given day, one can witness a number of these laws not being enforced. Perhaps administering them would be unnecessary for protecting the public’s safety, or no one calls to complain and file a grievance, but
the force needed to seek out violations may just not exist.
“My goodness, we don’t have near the amount of staff to go out and drive around looking for violations,” said Catherine Zunno, a planning department employee for the City of Eugene. “There has to be something that someone puts down in complaint format … and if someone does not correct a violation in the specified time, then the next step is to issue a (fine).”
Eugene’s planning department deals with enforcing many of the city’s land-use ordinances.
Four city ordinances fall under the public ways section of the code book that many people may not be aware of, but are not all that uncommon. Two sections deal with foliage, and one makes it a violation to have plants growing higher than 18 inches in one’s yard if they are within 35 feet of an intersection. The other states that having weeds higher than 10 inches is a violation, and so is having planted poison oak in a yard or blackberry bushes crossing over one’s property line.
Just the other day, a “blind gentleman called us to complain” that thorny blackberry bushes had grown into his yard, said Kris Aanderud, the city’s vegetation code enforcement officer. While walking along his fence he got tangled in them because he was not aware of the overgrowth, Aanderud said. So far this year “we have had 1,073 complaints that as of Friday … that led to 801 foliage violations,” she added.
It is also illegal to have a gate that opens out over the sidewalk, but it is not illegal to jay-walk so long as pedestrians cross at a 90-degree angle and no vehicle is coming.
Planning department officers share the problem of being understaffed and unable to search out violations with Eugene police officers. The officers used to go around and do bar checks for violations, but according to Ellis, they don’t have the staff to do that anymore.
If they did check any of the University area bars, one of the first violations officers might encounter is section 4.180: No bartender can drink on duty.
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