Residents at town meeting voted to overturn a 1982 bylaw banning coin-operated video and arcade games from Marshfield businesses.

Get your quarters ready, kids, because Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Tron could soon be coming back to town.

Residents at town meeting voted to overturn a 1982 bylaw banning coin-operated video and arcade games from Marshfield businesses. The vote was 203-175. The measure required a majority vote.



The proposal was brought as a petition by resident Craig Rondeau, who said the ban on arcade games never made sense to him, even as a fourth-grader.



“I was sitting thinking, ‘why is this illegal in my town, to have fun with my friends,’” he said, recalling a visit to a Hanover arcade as a child.



Believing that coin-operated video games robbed children’s piggy banks and brought an undesirable element to town, residents passed the ban in 1982. The prohibition split residents and threw Marshfield into the national spotlight as the law made its way through the state’s legal system.



The debate ended in 1983, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the business owners who were forced to pull the plug on Pac-Man.



Voters upheld the ban in 1994 and again in 2011, when an appeal was placed by petition on the town meeting agenda by lifelong resident George Mallett.



Rondeau said video games help children learn social skills when playing with friends, hone their problem-solving skills and encourage creative thinking. He said the games also allow those who don’t enjoy sports to experience a challenge.



Advisory member Thomas Scollins said his board unanimously voted against the proposal.



After hearing officials’ argument that there was no support from businesses to overturn the ban, Rondeau found six businesses that signed on to the petition.



“They want the opportunity to choose,” he said. “Let’s give them back their right to choose.”



Opposed to the proposal, resident Sue Walker said she likes to go out to dinner with her children so she can sit down and eat with them without the distraction of video games.



“There is gaming all over the place, and there’s nothing fun about it,” she said, adding that children running around restaurants is disturbing.



But rather than debating whether or not residents like video games, voter Dave Will told people to consider whether they want to live in a town that bans them.



“Do we want the town to make the decision for restaurants, for where we go to eat, or do we want people to decide where we eat?” he asked. “I don’t like the idea that the town is telling establishments and people what they can do.”



Resident Nicki Boutiette said gaming is alive and well – she noted that she met her husband through a college video game club – and parents who don’t want their children to play should simply say no.



Jessica Trufant may be reached at jtrufant@ledger.com.



