Lotteries in BA look for Chief of Staff’s permission to open shops

35 municipalities have been forced to shut down their lottery services as Buenos Aires has decided to go back to the phase 1 of its reopening process. 

Given the impossibility of carrying out normal operations, the President of the Chamber of Official Agents of Lottery and Related from Buenos Aires (CAOLAB), Marcelo Iglesias, formally requested the reopening of the agencies.

In a letter addressed to the Chief of Staff of Ministers, Carlos Alberto Bianco, Iglesias said that he understands the regulations and doesn’t question the reasons, but that it’s necessary to highlight why the agencies should be exempt from social, preventive and mandatory quarantine.

According to the president, “the exemption would not affect the purposes set forth in DNU 576/2020”, which extended the quarantine period. “The location and operation conditions barely differ between service payment shops and lottery agencies, and even in some cases the latter are better positioned,” Iglesias explained.

The president said that the agencies are neighborhood businesses with local employees. Due to their geographical distribution, each agency is located no more than 400 meters from another one. “Thus, no bettor should or will use public transportation to buy lottery tickets,” he argued.

In addition, he said that employees have to use public transportation and that employers would have no issues providing such things for them. 

He added: “Most of the agencies are small in size and already have prevention measures in place, which were previously taken for security reasons, and can be easily adapted to the new requirements of sanitary protocols.

“We request the Governor, within a framework with sanitary conditions, under the regulation of an Action Protocol, to enable the restart of this industry. We also require that this request be labeled as ‘urgent’ because it deals with issues that involve constitutional rights.”