In Brooksville, FL, 144 slot machines were destroyed starting on Wednesday and continuing into Thursday. The Hernando Sheriff’s Office seized the slot machines from Charles Bartlett’s Spring Hill game room, and must destroy all 144 of them.  The slot machines had been sitting in an air-conditioned storage unit since Mr. Bartlett’s business was raided on December 20. He ultimately pled guilty to a reduced charge.

The slot machines had been sitting in storage; until finally the county was ready to destroy them. A large truck came to pick them up and take them to the county landfill, where they were crushed by an 80,000 lb. tractor with a broad metal blade and steel wheels. The tractor driver said that it sounded “like wood breaking.” The pieces were then mixed in with the rest of the trash in the landfill. When Bartlett heard that the machines had been destroyed he was aghast – he claimed that they were legal machines and that the county was choosing to find irregularities where there weren’t any. 

Kevin Sharp, the owner of Reel Amusements of Tennessee, is the owner of the slot machines. He tried to stop the destruction of the slot machines, but his attorneys were unable to. He claimed it was $150,000 worth of merchandise that had been crushed. He still doesn’t understand why the county treated it the way they did. "It's like seizing crack cocaine," said prosecutor Mark Simpson. "Once it's determined that it is cocaine, it has the label stuck to it that it's contraband. You can't do anything with it other than destroy it."

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