Unwanted Pokemon Go Stops Be Gone, State Lawmaker Urges

By Stephen Gossett in News on Aug 25, 2016 9:20PM

Screenshot from Pokémon GO: Get Up and Go!

It’s been a while since we last checked in with the world- (and data-) conquering Pokémon Go and the augmented-reality game’s habit of leading players into regrettably located Poké-stops and gyms.

Apparently it’s still something of an issue here in Illinois: The Sun-Times reports State Rep. Kelly Cassidy outlined a legislative proposal at a press conference on Wednesday that would require the game’s developers to remove Poké-stops and gyms within two days of a request made by a property owner. Failure to do so would result in a fine.

The press conference took place at the Loyola Dunes Restoration, along the Rogers Park lakefront. The site was the immediate impetus for the bill. The project to restore the native wilderness of the space has made slow but strong strides over the last several years, but it has suffered recent setbacks as a smattering of Poke-spots have lured hundreds of players to the federally protected grounds.

So, on a spectrum of the game’s innumerable ill-advised geo-locations, this might not register from, say, the 9/11 Memorial Pool. But it still ain’t great.

According to the Sun-Times, Cassidy said that Pokemon Go developers, Niantic, have not responded to hundreds of requests made to remove the dune locations from the game.

But all this recent publicity seems to have finally made them take notice. The Poké-stop attracting much of the foot traffic, the "Buddha stop," has just been taken down, according to Cassidy.