Neighborhood residents recently began gearing up to fight plans for Forest Central Bingo’s move into Lake Ridge Village Shopping Center at Forest and Audelia Road.

That’s when they found out it was too late.

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“People have called in to ask ‘What can we do to prevent the bingo parlor from going in?” And now the answer is: There’s nothing you can do,’” says City Councilman Alan Walne, who represents Lake Highlands.

Bingo halls are permitted under the shopping center’s designation as community retail.

Walne says he, too, was caught off-guard by the move, and he’s trying to make sure such a situation won’t happen again. He’s seeking a moratorium on building permits for bingo halls until a City committee can make a recommendation.

Ultimately, Walne says he would like to see bingo halls required to obtain special use permits similar to those required for dance halls and sexually oriented businesses.

“Community retail centers have changed from what they are supposed to be,” Walne says, citing drug stores and shoe shops as some of the service-oriented businesses intended.

“This is an amusement use. I’m not sure they should have carte blanche for the permit.”

In the meantime, Walne is planning a town hall meeting (tentatively expected sometime this month) where neighborhood residents can meet with the owner of Forest Central Bingo, Cecile Rosenzweig. All involved say they welcome such a forum.

Jonna Miller, a mother of three living less than a block away from the shopping center, says she led a petition drive against the bingo hall because “I really care about my neighborhood, and I really don’t want to see it go to pot.”

Among her specific concerns: alcohol will be allowed at the hall, the value of neighborhood homes will go down, and other businesses will leave the shopping center.

This bingo hall should be located, as others are, in commercial areas far from homes, she says.

“If a bingo parlor was the best they could get there now, I can’t imagine what is next,” Miller says. “It will run off legitimate businesses.”

Miller also is concerned about drinking at the hall.

“If people want to bring their own alcohol, she (the bingo hall owner) would let them drink in her bingo parlor,” Miller says. “I can see the uproar when one of the kids is walking past there and gets hit by a car.”

Rosenzweig says the drinking issue has been misconstrued. She says she won’t sell liquor on-site and that drinking isn’t encouraged – but it will be allowed – at the bingo hall.

“This is a family place where people can bring their children,” Rosenzweig says. Her clientele includes blue-collar workers, office workers and retirees.

“I just have a nice, clean operation,” she says. “It’s quiet. If you miss a number, you may miss a bingo.”

“They have the wrong impression of what bingo is, at least at my hall. That’s why we need this forum.”

The hall is expected to open in about a month, with operating hours from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. For more information on the town hall meeting, call Walne’s council office at 214-670-4068.