So it's not surprising, then, that one of the people charged as the owner of the Capri is claiming he's not the owner.
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On a return trip to the Capri, the parking lot is empty and there are no smiling security guards shooting the breeze outside.
Mandy Oaklander
Game rooms, like this one on Bellaire Boulevard, are legal — as long as owners don't pay out in cash or valuable prizes.
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A knock on the door results in a pair of suspicious eyes peering through a sliding peephole. When we identify ourselves and ask to speak to the owner, the man, who says he's a security guard, steps outside and says the place is closed indefinitely. We give him a card and ask him to have the owner call, but we never hear back.
We do, however, get a chance to speak briefly with Shiraz Manesia, one of the men charged with possession of a gambling device in connection with the Capri.
According to an undercover officer's affidavit, a confidential informant "had multiple interactions with Shiraz Manesia inside of the Capri Game Room and he held himself out as the owner of the location. She can identify him by name and sight."
Maybe Manesia was just selling the woman a line; he told the Press he's merely the vendor, and he has no idea why police and prosecutors think he owns the place. All he did, he says, was buy 115 machines from Pioneer Amusement on Harwin, the 8-liner supplier that has absolutely no legal obligation to find out if they're selling to sketchy dudes. He then apparently placed 115 machines in a business on Telephone Road that did not appear to provide any other revenue-generating goods or services.
"...What they're doing, I don't know," he says, in broken English. "That is nothing concern about me."
When asked what he thinks people who play his machines can win, he says they play for prizes like barbecue grills, cameras and TVs. When asked if he's sure that that's legal, he says, "Maybe, I don't know, because the owner knows everything. I'm the lease guy. I'm the vendor. So I don't know."
The recent arrests at the Capri have scared some of the nearby game rooms. In a strip center just up the road, two others have closed. But the Just Gold game room a few hundred yards from the Capri is still open. The owner, Lourdes Rodriguez, is just one of many game room owners with landlords who won't ask any questions as long as the rent is paid every month.
While Just Gold, and this stretch of Telephone Road, is quiet for right now, the heat will blow over as it always does, and things will get back to normal. The promise of big money might just be an illusion for the suckers who play, but for the owners and vendors, the money is very real indeed.
craig.malisow@houstonpress.com
