El Toro Air Base Mobilizes Push for Lottery Sales

Along with golf and video games, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station would like to offer its officers and enlistees a new form of recreation--the California Lottery.

Brig. Gen. W. A. Bloomer, El Toro’s commanding general, has asked the assistant secretary of the Navy for permission “to sell California State lottery tickets through morale, welfare and recreation activities sales points.”

That would mean selling tickets from the two base liquor stores, said George Horner, a civilian employee who is El Toro’s deputy assistant chief of staff for services and who helped write the lottery proposal.

“I think it would be a contribution to the civilian community,” Horner said Thursday, adding that a third of the lottery’s proceeds will go toward public education in California.

‘Would Enjoy Game’

Also, any profits the base made from lottery sales would help support other base recreational programs, Horner said. Besides, he said, the Marines would probably enjoy the game.

“People in the military are human beings just like the rest of us,” he noted.

For all of the base’s enthusiasm for the lottery, there is a substantial hitch: A longstanding Department of Defense policy prohibits lotteries on all military bases.

According to the 1984 instruction from the secretary of the Navy on “standards of conduct and government ethics,” Navy personnel while on duty or on government property “shall not participate in any gambling activity including a lottery or pool, a game of chance for money or property or the sale or purchase of a number, slip or ticket.”

Exceptions to the policy must be approved by the secretary of the Navy.

Waiver Sought May 22

In keeping with military procedure, Bloomer on May 22 formally requested a waiver to allow the base to sell lottery tickets. Marine Corps and Navy spokesmen in Washington said Thursday--five months after Bloomer’s request--that the query was still being reviewed.

Officials said they might have an answer within a week or 10 days. Explaining the delay, one Navy official said that the request had “gotten buried in Marine headquarters.”

Whatever the reason, top military officials and their lawyers would be considering Bloomer’s query carefully because an exemption from the Navy’s anti-gambling policy “would have far-reaching effects,” Navy Cmdr. Rob Donovan said.

El Toro appears to be the only military base in the state that has made such a request. But other military installations are expected to follow its lead if the petition is granted.

“I’m sure if this was resolved, everybody would piggyback on it,” El Toro’s Horner said.

The 9,114-man El Toro base has a reputation for innovation. In June, it received the Department of Defense’s top award--the Award for Installation Excellence--when it was selected over every other military base in the nation for superior working conditions and services.

The base has also started a program for reclaiming jet fuel, opened the second McDonald’s restaurant to be located on a U.S. military base, opened a Boys Club affiliated with the Tustin Boys Club and offered innovative counseling programs to avert domestic violence.

The El Toro facility is also one of 15 military bases in the nation that have qualified for the Defense Department’s Model Installation Program. Bases accepted into the program are allowed to seek waivers from military regulations, and El Toro has sought permission to sell lottery tickets under the special MIP procedures.

Horner expects only pluses from selling California Lottery tickets because “any monies generated from it will help our recreation program. And we’ll be a good neighbor--contributing to the education of Californians,” he said.

Another base official said he believed that selling the tickets would allow the El Toro base to provide “a full spectrum of goods and services” at its stores. He added: “If it’s California law, why shouldn’t the installation be able to comply with state law?”

Finally, Horner said the lottery tickets would provide “amusement” for the Marines. After all, he noted, “my contributions to it have been amusing. I’ve spent $6 on lottery tickets and lost $4.”