Indians Throw In Hands on Gambling Issue

The embattled bingo and poker operations at the Rincon Indian Reservation northeast of Escondido are again under siege--this time from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indians themselves.

BIA officials in Riverside say the poker casino failed to receive the necessary federal blessing to open last October because a poker management contract between the Indians and a private management company was not first reviewed and approved by the BIA.

Richard Sola, attorney for the Rincon Tribal Council, said Thursday that the Indians have their own contractual disagreements with the management company, Southwest Indian Consultants.

For his part, Tribal Chairman Max Mazzetti said Thursday that the matter is so convoluted that he is unsure what public statement to make about the gaming operations on his reservation.

“We’re going around in circles, and we all have mixed feelings about what is happening so I’m not supposed to say anything yet,” Mazzetti said.

Virgil Townsend, acting manager of the BIA regional office in Riverside, said Thursday his agency was not going to aggressively pursue closing down the poker casino because “we’ve talked to Mr. Mazzetti and he’s said they’ll work things out. We’ve told them (the Indians) that the (poker) operators are not in compliance, and they (Indians) haven’t formally replied yet, but we were told they were going to shut them down.”

Mazzetti, however, said Thursday that such a decision had not yet been made. And Sola said that, the BIA issue aside, the Rincon Indians are upset with Southwest Indian Consultants because “they are in violation of our card room ordinance.” He would not elaborate except to say the issue was a financial one.

He said it was the management firm’s responsibility, and not the Indians’, to secure the BIA’s blessing before poker games were introduced on the reservation.

Larry Parr, managing partner of Southwest Indian Consultants, could not be reached Thursday for comment. Craig Phillips, 40, who previously had been identified as the manager of the poker casino that subleased a part of the bingo hall from Southwest Indian Consultants, left town several weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since, said Glenn Calac, a Rincon Indian who had served as security chief for the operation.

Calac, who said he has taken over managing the card room, said Parr told him Wednesday that Southwest Indian Consultants has no affiliation with the casino.

“We want to get in (BIA) compliance for poker, and we thought we were under Southwest’s umbrella, but they’ve told us they don’t want anything to do with us. So we went to the tribal council and they told us to go through Southwest to get our compliance. We don’t know what the deal is,” Calac said.

The poker casino was raided Dec. 12 by sheriff’s deputies, who issued misdemeanor citations to 26 card players for playing an allegedly illegal brand of poker. The players will be arraigned in Vista Municipal Court later this month.

Meanwhile, the company, which owns video poker machines used in the card room, has sued Sheriff John Duffy in San Diego Superior Court, seeking the return of the equipment seized by deputies.

Card dealers at the casino Thursday said the casino has resumed offering the controversial games, “Pai Gow poker” and “super pan-9,” despite the San Diego County district attorney’s contention that the games are illegal.