Attempts by aldermen to ban video gambling machines from their wards were struck down by colleagues Thursday in a rare rebuke of the control council members have over vice and other issues in their neighborhoods.
Two ordinances banning the machines in six different wards — the 26th, 27th, 28th, 33rd, 35th and 49th — were decisively defeated during a City Council License Committee meeting.
The vote broke from procedural norms and the long-running but not uniformly honored tradition of aldermanic prerogative, in which the council follows the local alderman’s lead on how to vote on ordinances dealing with their wards.
And it showed aldermen remained divided as a plan legalizing gambling machines in bars, restaurants and other locations throughout Chicago races ahead.
