flat stores

Noun

flat store (plural flat stores)

1. (slang) A crooked gambling establishment, such as a casino running rigged or fixed (dishonest) games of chance.
   • He had told me that in the old days in Chicago he had run a flat-store with a partner who had tuberculosis and also smoked cigars.1962: Saul Bellow & Keith Botsford, The Noble Savage, p59 (World Pub. Co)

   Synonyms:

   flat joint

2. A storage facility in which the material stored is simply piled on a floor (as opposed to a bin or silo).
   • It is sometimes necessary to provide storage for grain beyond the normal capacity of an elevator facility or elsewhere. In such conditions a relatively inexpensive expedient is the flat store. This is little more than a cover for a pile of dry grain adopting its natural form as poured.1994, Norman Leslie Kent, A. D. Evers, Technology of Cereals, →ISBN