Council Favors Change in Ordinance : Moorpark Card Club May Get New Life

The Moorpark City Council has tentatively approved an amendment to a city ordinance that would allow the Rendezvous Card Room, a fixture for nearly 30 years, to reopen soon.

The amendment, approved Tuesday by a 3-2 vote, will get a second review by the council in early March. The amendment becomes effective 30 days after second approval.

The Rendezvous was opened by Robert S. Bonta in 1956 in a windowless building in the center of Moorpark.

County Law Adopted

In 1958, the county passed an ordinance that prohibited new card rooms from opening in unincorporated areas, but allowed existing rooms to remain in business as long as the original owner was alive. When Moorpark incorporated in 1983, it adopted the county law.

When Bonta died in December, the card room, which had two poker tables, immediately closed. Earlier this month, however, Bonta’s daughter and son, Mary Ann Haney of Moorpark and Warren Bonta of Sacramento, asked the council to amend the ordinance to allow them to reopen the club.

“It’s a tribute to my father,” Haney said in an interview. “It was his niche in life and we’d like to continue it . . . to keep his memory alive.”

The council members who voted to approve the amendment praised the long, nearly crime-free operation of the club and its status as an institution in the city.

“I think it would be a detriment for the city to get rid of it,” Councilman Thomas C. Ferguson said. “It’s been here longer than most of us.”

Termed Inappropriate

Mayor Albert Prieto and Mayor Pro Tem James D. Weak opposed reopening the club. Weak said he considered the heirs’ request an application for a new gambling establishment, which he said was inappropriate in a “family community.”

‘I think we’re voting with our hearts and not with our minds,’ Weak said.

Assistant Sheriff Dennis C. Gillette wrote in a letter to the council that any gambling institution “might deteriorate the high standards of the city.”

The Rendezvous is one of three card clubs in Ventura County. The others are in Fillmore and Ventura.

The amendment would allow succeeding generations of Robert Bonta’s heirs to operate the club. But it specifies that no poker tables be added and requires the fingerprinting and photographing of employees. The council also raised the minimum age of patrons from 18 to 21.