Bingo License Ban Is Lifted After One Year

The City Council has lifted a year-old moratorium on new bingo licenses in an effort to regain revenues that were lost when the lucrative Cooper Fellowship Bingo Parlor shut its doors early this year.

In its unanimous vote to end the ban Tuesday night, the council also added new controls to the city’s 4-year-old bingo ordinance, which allows games operated by charitable organizations.

The controls will allow the city to monitor the finances of nonprofit organizations that operate bingo games, and to limit the hours of operation.

The council banned new licenses last August to stem a rising number of bingo applications from prospective operators who wanted to duplicate the success of the 600-seat Cooper Fellowship Bingo Parlor.

City officials feared that Hawaiian Gardens might become “the bingo capital of the world,” said Mayor Kathleen M. Navejas.

“We were having bingo junkies coming from all over,” making applications, Navejas said. She declined to say how many applications the city received before issuing the ban.

But officials began to reconsider after the Cooper Fellowship shut down its game last February.

The city received about $200,000 annually from the Cooper game. Many city departments, including the Hawaiian Gardens Social Services Agency, have suffered from the lost income, Navejas said.

Her husband, Carlos Navejas, who runs the social service agency, recently asked the City Council for money to help offset the loss of a monthly $10,000 donation from the fellowship’s bingo proceeds. That money was paid directly to the agency, a private food distribution and legal service organization.

The Cooper Fellowship, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit organization, received an estimated $24 million a year from the game at 11831 E. Carson Street.

But after five years, Cooper closed when its founder and executive director, Jack Blackburn, suffered a cardiac problem, according to Cooper Fellowship attorney, Bill Thom.

Holdings Sold

Cooper Fellowship’s Hawaiian Gardens holdings have been sold to a firm headed by a local physician and millionaire developer, Dr. Irving I. Moskowitz, for a reported $5.5 million, according to sources. Moskowitz, who owns medical centers in Hawaiian Gardens and Lakewood, applied for a bingo license June 7 under a nonprofit foundation bearing his name.

Moskowitz’s application could be approved and a license issued by the end of this month, said City Administrator Darwin G. Pichetto.

“There’s a lot money in bingo. Everybody recognizes that,” said Navejas about the council’s decision to lift the ban. “(The City Council) recognizes that.” The city would receive 1% of the bingo revenues.

The original bingo ordinance, which narrowly passed in May, 1983, contained no monitoring provisions and did not regulate the number of days and hours during which games could be played. “It was not a well-written document,” said Navejas. “People could play all night if they wanted.”

Background Checks

Under the new guidelines, the Sheriff’s Department will conduct background checks of bingo applicants.

The Sheriff’s Department is checking Moskowitz’s financial and legal status and should complete the task “within a matter of weeks,” said Capt. Elmer Omahundro of the Lakewood sheriff’s station.

Neither Moskowitz nor his attorney, Thomas Mesereau, was available for comment.

The application does not explain the nature of the foundation or its beneficiaries. However, statements in the application by the Internal Revenue Service and the state confirm that the foundation is registered as a tax-exempt institution.

The amendment to the ordinance also calls for yearly financial statements from the operator and city access to financial records during normal working hours. In addition, the city may now revoke operators’ licenses after a public hearing.

Restricted Hours

Operating hours will be restricted to 10 a.m. through midnight during the week, and until 2 a.m. on weekends.

Navejas said that the amendments, developed over the past year, should help the city avoid the problems of the past.

“We want to make sure that everybody is protected, as well as the City Council,” Navejas told the council before the unanimous vote.

Cooper Fellowship, which also operates an alcoholic rehabilitation center in Santa Ana, has been the object of several investigations by the state attorney general’s office, and the Los Angeles and Orange County district attorneys’ offices.

For example, in 1985 Blackburn was arrested on charges of illegally using bingo proceeds to pay himself and other Cooper employees. The previous year, he was arrested on charges of cocaine possession, but neither charge resulted in a conviction.