Pat Soucy spent two years writing legislators and law enforcement officers, begging them to shut down the game rooms near her business that she argues draw cash-carrying crowds and robbers.

This weekend only fueled her frustration. Since Saturday, three more game rooms throughout Galveston County were robbed at gunpoint, added to the four robberies last week and dozens in the recent months.

“They bring all the crime, they’re all getting robbed,” she said. “How many people getting shot or killed is it going to take?”

On Monday, two armed men robbed a game room in the 7900 block of state Highway 6 in Hitchcock about 1:30 p.m. and fled in a white, four-door Volkswagen displaying paper tags.

On Sunday evening, a man entered the Lucky 7 game room in La Marque, 5307 Gulf Freeway, and robbed a clerk at gunpoint.

On Saturday, the Hide-Away game room, 2400 12^th St., in Bacliff, was robbed by three gun-toting men.

Soucy, who lives in San Leon, is like many of the neighbors and business owners who live near 8-liner game rooms. She’s sick of the crime and baffled by law enforcement’s seeming ambivalence toward what she sees as an open violation of the law.

Now, she’s once again asking the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office for help, although she hasn’t gotten a response yet.

“If other people can shut them down, why can’t we?” she said.

Game rooms fall into a legal gray area because although owning the 8-liner machines isn’t illegal, paying out more than $5 per win is. The law, meant to regulate games like those where players try to grab a stuffed animal with a metal crane, says as long as the prize is worth less than 10 times the cost to play or $5, it’s allowed.

“When these guys are robbing these places, are they carrying out big bags of stuffed rabbits?” Soucy said. “Of course not. They’ve got cash. They have to know they’re paying out.”

Mark Miller, who manages a Bacliff furniture store within 10 feet of one game room, said he’s never had a problem with the business itself. But the robberies trouble him.

“Everyone else around is at risk when there’s a robber,” he said. “It’s in our neighborhood. In a lot of towns, that’s not the case. Here, they’re amid our homes.”

Galveston County Sheriff’s deputies recently visited all the game rooms in Bacliff and San Leon to remind them what the laws say about illegally paying out for wins, spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo said.

“There are some people that are pretty doggone tired of that, and I think they have a reason to be,” he said.

To catch game rooms breaking laws, officers’ only choice is to work an undercover operation, he said.

That takes time, manpower and can be expensive, Tuttoilmondo said.

But Dickinson police showed it could be done. Police Chief Ron Morales worked to shut down four game rooms in less than a year and said it wasn’t as difficult as some people think.

“We just enforced the law,” he said.

His officers talked to Galveston County prosecutors to find out what they’d need to build their case. They put undercover officers in the game rooms and, as soon as they saw employees pay out, made an arrest.

Now, when people try to apply for a permit for a game room, Morales meets with them.

“I tell them, ‘As soon as you come in, I’m going to bust you,’” he said. “‘I’ll have people perched on your doorstep.’”

Morales said he offered his detectives to any other police department wanting to crack down on game rooms. So far, there haven’t been any takers, he said.

Since the recent robbery spree, some game rooms have changed their practices. The Castaways game room in Bacliff posted signs announcing that all new members had to turn over their driver licenses.

At least one customer, Louis Cascarelli, said he wouldn’t return to the game rooms until things settled down.

And an employee at Castaways, which was robbed last week, said she’s not going to play in the game rooms, even though she’ll continue to work at one.