Slot Machine a Go Go–1934 — Rooney’s Pool Hall

Slot Machine Stolen During Early Hours of Sunday Morning — Almonte Gazette November 1934

During the early hours of last Sunday morning the store and pool room of Patrick Rooney, Almonte, was entered and a slot machine stolen from the premises. The thieves gained entrance through a side window on Bridge street by breaking a pane of glass. The machine is quite large and heavy which would indicate that the theft was not the work of one man. How much money was inside the machine has not been revealed. Chief E. D. Walsh of Almonte, and Provincial Constable Wannell of Perth, were informed of the affair, and are working on -the case. A similar machine was stolen in Carleton Place recently but was recovered hidden under a pile of shavings near a planing mill. If the Almonte thieves wanted to get rid of the machine after opening it to recover the money, it is probable they would throw it in the river.

same newspaper

Thieves were busy in Carleton Place over the weekend. Blankets and underclothing were stolen from the shipping room of Bates & Innis Sunday evening and later recovered strewn along the railway tracks. The store of Baird & Riddell was entered Tuesday morning and goods stolen

Dec 1934

In a series of unexpected raids /simultaneously in Perth, Smiths Falls carried out simuitaneously in Carleton Place Friday afternoon, Provincial Police seized upwards of twenty slot machines which were being operated in pool rooms, restaurants and other places of business. The machines are controlled by Albert Dowsett of Smiths Falls, it is said, and are installed on a profit sharing basis. The slot machines in question are something along the lines of a cash register and are quite expensive owing to the complicated mechanism.

Karen Hirst

May 25, 2019 · Passing Rooney’s Pool Room corner and seeing the empty storefront, I wonder if guys and gals play pool anywhere these days?In days of yore when it was a pool room it was an active hang out for the young men of our times, a place to gather and advance their skill with a pool cue and hit those hard, brightly colored balls into the side pocket and win the challenge placed!The corner itself had a status, an image. It was ‘the’ place for adolescent boys to be seen, to gather, to smoke and look like Robert Redford in the Hustler, or the like! Boys would hang out and watch the world go by or maybe whistle at a few pretty young ladies passing by whose parents had warned them not to be standing around the pool room corner. The less than welcomed Halloween’ egg throwing antics could also be executed from the pool room corner adding to it’s reputation. Karen Hirst

Almonte Gazette March 1992
Marty Taylor
“Peter Kells was reminding me that the old pool hall was THE place to hang out. Unfortunately, because of our age, we were asked to leave the premises on several occasions. Peter tells me he remembers one night, the owner actually calling his parents, asking if they knew their son was hanging out in such an establishment. What are your memories of the pool hall? Anyone remember what year it closed?”

“I guess this bank intends to stay in this place for a while at least”, Louis said to himself, unconsciously fingering the forty-two dollars which he had rolled up in his pocket in the Bank of Montreal bills, as large on the whole as ordinary notepaper. He seemed to be surrounded by mills at this place, for he could see the red brick Penman Woollen Mill, and beyond that the Yorkshire Wool Stock mill, and in behind the Gazette office he could detect an iron foundry, and another mill beyond that, and the flour mill where the railway bridge crossed the river, and which he had crossed in the train half an hour or more before.

“Busy place, Friendly, Nice people, Almonte”. The words kept recurring in his mind, and he consoled himself with the thought that he was looking around for the day anyway. He kept wondering about that empty store, and that meant he should ask somebody about it. After all, a man could wash dishes in Athens, or Montreal, or Almonte.

All the same.He went back up the street past the post office building and stopped in front of the place next door, a place that seemed to be a combination barber shop and pool room. It wasn’t that he needed a hair cut, but barber shops were fine places for finding out what’s going on. He walked in.Jim Hogan, co-proprietor with his brother-in-law, Pat Rooney, watched the stranger enter with interest. Jim was dusting off the Boston pool table, and immediately put the whisk away, for patrons, in Jim’s eyes, carried much more interest than dust specks on the green felt.

“G’day. Nice Morning,”

Jim poured out a little of his day’s words to prime the conversation pump, and started round the table to take the balls out of the pockets. He rolled them all to the end of the table and then caged them in the wooden triangle. Removing the cage, he selected a cue from the wall rack, and stood beside the table, elaborately chalking the cue-tip, and surveying the stranger as he did so.

“Care to play a game?” he tossed in Louis’s direction. “What you call it?” “Pool, Boston pool. That other table’s different. It’s snooker. This one here’s for Boston pool.” “Okay.”