The necessary chips aren’t in place for bingo in Ferriday yet.

The town council voted to table any action on allowing a charitable bingo hall to open due largely to a typographical error in the town’s newspaper. Public notice of Tuesday night’s public hearing was listed incorrectly in the advertisement.

When the error was discovered, the town posted notice of the correct meeting time. However, several board members said it was best to wait on the topic.

The council will re-advertise another hearing before taking action on the matter.

But the decision to delay on the bingo hall came only after strong comments from the public members that were present for the hearing.

“I really personally don’t feel we need another vice in our community,” resident Lisa Smith said. “People can go to Natchez and gamble.”

Two Tallulah businessmen proposed the idea at last month’s meeting. Nonprofit organizations could use the hall to raise funds. Forty-five percent of the profits from live and electronic bingo would go to the nonprofit managing the six-hour session. Thirty percent would go to the owners, and 25 percent would go to the town.

Smith presented the council with several pages of research on gambling and what it can do to a community.

“When gambling appears in a community it brings a wave of addiction,” she said.

Resident Liz Brooking strongly urged the council to make sure the public had a voice before bingo was approved for the town.

“The public needs to speak on this issue because it affects everybody,” she said.

“This is a snowballing operation. It could really get out of hand.”

Others in the audience questioned how the bingo hall would contribute financially to the community, how children would be handled in the building and whether alcohol and tobacco would be allowed.

Mayor Gene Allen told the small crowd of approximately 10 that the council members are elected to represent the people, not voice their personal views.

“I don’t want you to sit here and make these people villains,” Allen said.

Allen also told the crowd he wanted to see as much interest in the recreation of the town as in the bingo hall.

“We’ve talked about recreation for children day in and day out, and I haven’t seen the first person come tell us what we can do to make sure we have the proper recreation,” Allen said.

“Tell us where we are going to get these funds. I want this community to have input”

Allen encouraged the public to get involved in the effort to reopen the town’s swimming pool.

Brooking told the council she had been working to find ways to open the pool and would continue to work on the project.

Allen said the whole community needed to get behind the project to make it happen.