Local News in Brief : Bingo License Ban Lifted
The Hawaiian Gardens 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, the council also approved new controls for 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. But officials began to reconsider after the Cooper Fellowship, which generated about $200,000 annually for the city, shut down its game last February when its founder suffered health problems.
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