Free National Movement (FNM) Deputy Leader Loretta Butler-Turner yesterday suggested that Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller should be arrested after he admitted to gambling last week.
"Tall Pines can buy all the numbers he wants," she said during debate on a package of anti-crime bills. "Maybe he needs to be escorted out of here and asked why is he breaking the laws of the land when in fact he stands here as a legislator. This is the duplicity that we need to look at.
"The reality is you have legislators in here saying they're making the law in here for law-abiding citizens, yet they come in here and claim they are breaking the law. There's got to be something wrong with that. There's got to be something inherently wrong with that. It is an extraordinary contradiction of a message to send to Bahamians in general."
During debate on those bills last week, Miller defended web shop owners and admitted that he plays numbers.
"I went to the barber yesterday (last Tuesday) and a [man] tried to sell me numbers," he said. "I can't even buy numbers. I spent $20, and I didn't catch anything."
Butler-Turner said yesterday she thought Miller's admission is cause for concern.
"We must be upholding the laws of the land," she said. "And if the law of the land says the numbers business is illegal...if you break the law, you are a criminal."
National Security Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage, who stood on a point of order, said Butler-Tuner has no "moral authority" to criticize the government on web shops.
He said the adminstration she was a part of was aware of the inner workings of those businesses.
"They took on the task of determining how much these web shops make so that they could decide how much to tax them when they were legitimizing them," said Nottage, referring to the Ingraham administration.
But Butler-Turner claimed that "the licenses that were granted to these people who are running organized crime in web shops [were] not for the selling of numbers; [they were] for people to be able to go there and be able to use a computer".
Gaming Board Chairman Andre Rollins, who also rose on a point of order, also accused Butler-Turner of duplicity.
"The fact is the FNM, the prior administration, knew full well what was taking place in these web shops," he said. "They chose to stick their heads in the sand and act as if they didn't know it was taking place.
"This PLP administration, myself and others, have been advocating for us to deal with the industry and regulate it because as the minister of state for legal affairs (Damian Gomez) has acknowledged, there are trafficking concerns and there are terrorist concerns tied to the operation of these web shops in absence of a regulated industry.
"So it is irresponsible and reckless for the member for Long Island to act as though this type of conversation was not taking place around the former Cabinet table."
On January 28, a majority of people who voted in a referendum on gambling voted against the establishment of a national lottery, and the regularization and taxation of web shops.
A day later, Prime Minister Perry Christie ordered all web shop operators to shut down their gaming operations immediately or face arrest and prosecution.
The matter then went before the Supreme Court and a legal battle is underway.
Nonetheless, Butler-Turner said the law is not being upheld.
Miller, who did not defend his actions, pointed out that the former government failed to shut down any of the web shops while in office.
"They had five years to close them down," he said. "They closed none down because they wanted the people's money. That's why they didn't close them down."
He later added that web shops were around for 65 years.
"And they [are not] going anywhere," he said.

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