More Lottery Ticket Outlets Will Go to Cities’ Downtowns

California State Lottery officials, acknowledging that their initial selection of ticket outlets shortchanged downtowns, plan to add 1,100 downtown retailers within days of the game’s Oct. 3 kickoff, lottery director M. Mark Michalko said Friday.

Visiting San Diego to promote the lottery and meet with reporters, Michalko also said outlets that could detract from the lottery’s “dignity”--including adult bookstores--might lose their provisional contracts to be ticket retailers.

Of the 1,500 ticket outlets in San Diego County, 25 are in downtown San Diego, according to Molly English, district sales manager for the lottery. City planners estimate that 50,000 to 70,000 people work downtown.

Los Angeles’ and San Francisco’s downtowns also ended up with inadequate numbers of retailers in the initial selection last month of 20,000 sales outlets statewide, Michalko said.

The outlets were chosen from among 30,000 applicants with the objective of providing one retailer for every 1,250 residents, he explained. But that formula failed to provide sufficient outlets in downtowns where, typically, few people live but many work, shop and visit.

“We recognize that as a potential problem in many major cities in California,” Michalko said.

So with less than two weeks remaining before lottery tickets go on sale, state officials are scurrying to enlist 1,100 additional downtown retailers from the applicants turned down in the initial screening.

Thus, many of the 75 applicants in downtown San Diego who were passed over in the first round of selections are getting a second chance, English said. “We have tried to get quite a few of those approved,” she said.

Michalko said he hoped that the necessary computerized accounts for the additional retailers could be established before the lottery kicks off Oct. 3. “Certainly they will all be operational shortly thereafter,” he said.

The first “instant winner” game will offer prizes of $2 to $2 million for a $1 chance. The odds of buying a winning ticket are 1 in 9. Lottery officials expect that the 400 million tickets printed for the first game will sell out within 12 weeks.

Even as lottery officials try to enlist more retailers, some businesses provisionally selected will be reconsidered, Michalko said.

In San Diego, those will include five outlets of the F Street Bookstore, a chain of adult-oriented shops, he said.

Besides businesses whose owners fail the state’s criminal and financial background checks, Michalko said, the lottery may bar outlets that “do not comport to the dignity of the state.”

However, lottery officials can expect a fight if they withdraw the bookstores’ sales contracts.

“In the event they interfere with our right to sell tickets, we are prepared to initiate legal action,” said Tom Winbish, operations manager for F Street Bookstore. “We have every right to sell the tickets--as much right as 7-Eleven or Safeway or any licensed business.”

Meanwhile, lottery activities are moving into high gear across the state.

Advertising in newspapers and on television and radio stations will begin next week, according to Michalko. Stores are starting to post signs, banners and decals identifying themselves as ticket outlets.

The tickets themselves will be delivered to retailers beginning Monday. And, although the starting time for sales is 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, lottery officials are expecting that some retailers will lose patience and sell tickets early.

“We’re trying to encourage people to stay within the rules and not sell tickets prior to that date,” Michalko said. “But someone somewhere will sell a lottery ticket before 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 3.”