Meadville police seized about 35 skill-game machines from four businesses last week after a court-imposed Oct. 13 deadline for their removal passed, interim City Manager Peter Grella reported to Meadville City Council on Tuesday.

“I’m happy to say it went smoothly, peacefully, and shop owners were very cooperative,” Grella said. The city received a state grant to cover overtime and other costs of enforcing the state law for one year, he said.

Police seized the machines on Thursday and Friday, according to Chief Michael Stefanucci. They came from Playmaker’s, 416 North St.; Plaza Coin-Op Laundry, 18915 Park Ave. Plaza; and S&H Smoke Shop locations at 324 Pine St. and in the Downtown Mall.

None of the machines were plugged in when police took them, and Stefanucci said he did not expect any charges to be filed. “The law says that they will be forfeited to the commonwealth,” he said. “We would have to go through the forfeiture process to have the courts fulfill that. They would be destroyed after that.” The machines will remain in storage until the state provides additional guidance on how to proceed.

Officers removed the machines with dollies, loaded them onto a city Public Works truck equipped with a lift gate and took them to storage at the Public Works garage. “Most of these businesses were happy to see us,” Stefanucci said. None of the businesses owned the machines, he said, and they had difficulty arranging pickup times with the companies that supplied them. Paperwork from the same Pittsburgh-based law firm accompanied each machine, and Stefanucci said officers had not yet determined whether they were all owned by the same supplier.

In at least one case, the supplier picked up one or two newer machines from a business in the days before the deadline while leaving older machines that police later seized, according to Stefanucci. The company also reportedly removed money from an older machine just before the deadline but did not take the machine itself.

Stefanucci expects the department to seize additional machines. “If anybody knows where any are at and wants to submit a tip,” he said, “they can.” Meadville Police Department can be reached at (814) 724-6100.

The machines became illegal after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled June 15, 2026, that skill-game devices are slot machines under the Gaming Act. Only licensed casinos and qualifying truck-stop establishments may legally possess them. Devices anywhere else in the state became unlawful and subject to seizure as of Oct. 14, 2026, according to the Pennsylvania State Police, which warned that simply unplugging a machine does not make it legal.

By the Conneaut Valley Post