Catherine Hanaway’s New Vice Squad Celebrates Destroying Missouri Businesses
- Jun 27
- 4 min read
By Samuel Trapp, Missouri Licensing Advocacy Group, Inc. d/b/a MOLAG
Catherine Hanaway’s new “modern-day vice squad” campaign starts with one assumption: everybody is a criminal. That is the real problem.
Her public campaign wants Missourians to believe there is a hidden criminal enterprise behind every convenience store, smoke shop, bar, restaurant, veterans hall, fraternal organization, and small business that has operated disputed machines in plain sight for years. It is a fear narrative first and a legal argument second.
Hanaway has declared the gray area over. She has taken her interpretation of Missouri law and treated it as final. Not as an argument. Not as a question for a court. Not as an issue the legislature has struggled with for years. Final. But that isn't how Missouri law works. Catherine Hanaway is not the legislature. She is not the court. She is not the sole arbiter of truth and justice in Missouri.
No matter. She and her new “Vice Squad” comrades are targeting legitimate Missouri businesses anyway, using public accusations, criminal and civil threat letters, ATC advisories, liquor-license concerns, and the fear of becoming the next example.
Hanaway and her cronies act like frightening businesses into submission somehow creates a victory for Missouri. I say those businesses are not criminal enterprises in need of a “vice squad.” Neither the businesses, nor the machines they have operated openly for years are just numbers. They represent significant income to the State as well as a source for store revenue, route revenue, contracts, rent, payroll, and family income for small businesses trying to survive. For a small operator or retailer, Hanaway's threat letters are not just paperwork. ATC's related liquor-license attacks are not a minor inconvenience. Such public accusations damage income, banking relationships, property and business values, customers, contracts, and reputation before any court ever decides any of the issues.
Meanwhile, the legislature has repeatedly debated and failed to pass legislation addressing video lottery and electronic gaming machines, including definitions, licensing, testing, central control systems, transition rules, and delayed implementation. What a perfect opportunity for Hanaway to create her own form of clarity by pontificating from on high. She does not need proof - she just labels every machine illegal and every operator therefore a criminal, with no contrary view permitted, and the businesses submit. Hanaway is using her position as a club, and we should ALL push back against that type of government.
Like many Missourians, I would fully support a reasonable approach to these issues. But public officials should not turn unsettled law into a public-relations campaign against small businesses. Like the AG, I cannot prove any particular VLT machines legal or illegal. I would never take such an indefensible position, but I am not the person out there proclaiming certainty. I'm merely saying that Hanaway and her enforcers cannot just issue a proclamation declaring every machine illegal, and another proclamation stating that any convenience store that has such a machine is somehow a haven for drugs and other illegal activity to create new brand of vice squad enforcement.
The legislature has long struggled with legislation regarding the very machines she is targeting. That struggle does not prove every machine lawful, but it doesn't declare them illegal either. What the struggle does prove is that the issue is far from simple. It is technical, unsettled, and legislative in nature, and cannot be decided by one person taking her extreme view and declaring it the only law in town. If the law was already as clear as she claims, her Vice Squad would have been formed long ago, and the legislature would not keep trying to define it.
Hanaway’s conclusions regarding the alleged link between convenience stores and illegal activity also should be clarified. Where did she develop this negative view of such a critical backbone of Missouri business? Convenience stores are now somehow a haven for illegal activity? What?! Where does this newfound knowledge come from? Is she another politician that dislikes deplorables? Is there any reasonable evidence she can provide to support this conclusion? I remain dubious. I am certain others share my doubt.
This is why MOLAG filed suit against her (links to the suit and exhibits provided below). MOLAG is not asking the Court to legalize unlawful gambling. MOLAG is asking the Court to stop government by accusation. If the State has a case, bring the case. If a machine is illegal, then have supporting evidence BEFORE you destroy a business, not after. If Missouri needs clear law, pass it. But stop treating small businesses like criminals in need of a vice squad because one official is forcing her own definition in support of her own agenda, whatever that may be. Missouri does not need Catherine Hanaway’s vice squad. Missouri needs clear law.
In the meantime, those targeted need a common voice. MOLAG provides that voice. Affected businesses and readers who want more information about the lawsuit and the industry response can learn more at MOLAG.org.
These issues are also discussed publicly through Civic Outlaws at civicoutlaws.com/podcast. Live on Fridays from 7 to 830a at damradio.com/live. I invite any vice squad member to participate. Civic Outlaws publishes commentary and public education on government accountability and regulatory overreach. This article is not a request to support or oppose any candidate for public office.
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