Countywide

The 4th District Court of Appeal has affirmed a Superior Court ruling that San Diego County sheriff’s deputies were justified in confiscating four video games they said were slot machines.

An attorney for the machine’s owners had sued the Sheriff’s Department to return the machines, taken from four bars in 1987. Each video machine had seven games, from draw poker and seven-card stud to baccarat and craps.

The Superior Court ruled, and the appellate court affirmed, that the video machines were slot machines because the player could gain “a thing of value” or an extra game, in winning.

Michael L. Jimmink, an attorney for the owners--Score Family Fun Center Inc., Electric Grandmother Inc. and Bernice and Edith Cline--said Monday that the appellate decision means that any law enforcement agency can confiscate such machines.

“Nobody’s come after these machines before,” he said. “Nobody cared about them before. Now, the county sheriff decided these were criminal violations.”

Jimmink said the machines have been destroyed.

Among other things, Jimmink argued that state penal codes that set out gambling violations involving slot machines were established in the 1950s, long before video games were created.

The appellate court disagreed, saying that subsequent state legislation defining slot machines includes video games.

Under state law, a slot machine also is defined as a game that relies on “any element of hazard or chance” as opposed to a pinball machine or a regular video game, which is considered by state statute as a game of skill.

County attorneys could not be reached Monday for comment.