Officials Tell of Threats From Bingo Applicants

City officials in Cudahy and Hawaiian Gardens are complaining that a group of bingo applicants has used various pressure tactics--including heated confrontations and threats of legal action--to press its effort to open a bingo parlor.

In interviews in the past week, officials in both cities have described several incidents in which they claim they have been unduly pressured to issue bingo permits to Guide Dogs of the Desert Inc., a Palm Springs-based guide dog training center.

Some Report Threats, Abuse

Some officials have reported threatening phone calls, while others have said they have been subjected to verbal abuse.

“I’m used to people being aggressive. We deal with aggressive people all the time,” Cudahy City Manager Gerald Caton said in an interview Friday after he and Assistant City Manager Jack Joseph cut short a meeting with Guide Dogs representatives. “But this was intimidation.”

Caton said he was told that he would lose his job if he did not grant a bingo permit to the nonprofit organization. He said the threat came from longtime bingo promoter Frank Rose, who was hired by Guide Dogs as a consultant.

“I was told (by Rose), ‘You’re finished. You’ll be terminated in three days. You’ll be lucky if you get a job as a dishwasher,’ ” Caton said. Rose said that he had not threatened Caton.

Hawaiian Gardens officials said Guide Dogs representatives have telephoned council members at home and threatened to sue them individually if they did not approve a bingo license for the organization.

Guide Dogs is attempting to open a large bingo parlor in Southeast Los Angeles County to help raise money to expand the desert guide dog school. The school needs $1 million to fund its proposed expansion plan on a hillside north of Palm Springs, Guide Dogs officials said.

Guide Dogs’ application to run a bingo parlor in Hawaiian Gardens was rejected in December when officials there placed an indefinite freeze on new bingo games. Three weeks later, Guide Dogs officials withdrew a bingo application in Cudahy after city officials objected to the proposed site for the game--a city-owned industrial building that houses the Cudahy Social Service Agency.

Guide Dogs officials deny that they have used intimidation and threats in an effort to force city officials to approve their bingo applications.

“Nobody has been intimidating anyone,” Guide Dogs negotiator Edward Struthers said in a telephone interview. Guide Dogs officials, Struthers said, have been working hard to find a suitable fund-raising program and are growing increasingly frustrated with city politics.

“We’re kind of caught in the middle,” Struthers said, adding that he has faith in the integrity of his co-negotiators and that he does not believe the charges leveled against Rose or any other member of the group.

Struthers said the group has been negotiating in good faith with city officials and has completed all the necessary paper work. But, he contends, city officials have unfairly rejected attempts to open a bingo parlor.

Cudahy City Manager Caton said last Friday that Rose and Peter Figueroa, the organization’s secretary-treasurer, came to his office and demanded that they be issued a license. When they were told that a city investigation on the application had not been completed, Caton said, Rose flew into a rage, shouted obscenities and made threats.

Rose apparently was angered because Jack Joseph, the assistant city manager, had questioned Guide Dogs Executive Director Christopher Corr about the application in a telephone conversation, Caton said.

Rose pointed his finger at Joseph and said: “Don’t ever call a friend of mine again. You’ll be in big trouble if you do,” according to Caton. As he was leaving, Rose also challenged Joseph to “step outside,” Caton added.

Joseph, who refused to go outside, said later, “They were acting like thugs.”

Rose, in a telephone interview Monday, denied that he had threatened or shouted obscenities at either Caton or Joseph during the meeting. “There was no screaming on my part,” Rose said.

He said that he had met with the city administrators under orders from Struthers, who told him that a bingo license was ready to be issued. Struthers, however, later said that Rose had visited Cudahy City Hall to work out details in acquiring a bingo permit.

“They (Caton and Joseph) did all the yelling,” Rose said. Cudahy officials denied that they made any promise to issue a bingo permit.

Caton admitted that he yelled at Rose and Figueroa to leave his office, but only after Rose began shouting obscenities, he said. After the argument erupted, Joseph said he threatened to call the police if Rose and Figueroa did not leave.

Figueroa did not return phone calls to his Santa Ana office.

Trains 24 Dogs Yearly

The 14-year-old guide dog school trains 24 guide dogs a year and donates them to blind people. The center would donate an unspecified portion of its bingo profits to local charities, said Corr, the organization’s executive director.

Guide Dogs and another nonprofit organization applied in October for a bingo permit in Hawaiian Gardens. Serenity Church Inc., of Anaheim, which runs a bingo game in Adelanto, had planned to share floor space with Guide Dogs of the Desert in the Lakewood Elks Club on Carson Street, according to the bingo application in that city. Rose said he is a charter member of Serenity Church.

A newly chartered corporation, Hawaiian Gardens Property Inc., had agreed to purchase the building and lease it to the nonprofit organizations for fund raising.

Struthers, who is also chairman of Hawaiian Gardens Property Inc., said Monday that he was negotiating with several Hawaiian Gardens council members in an effort to persuade them to reconsider issuing the license. He said he is also continuing to look for a bingo location in Cudahy.

Attorneys for Guide Dogs are considering legal action against council members if they do not lift the bingo ban, Struthers said. He declined to elaborate on the legal basis for such action.

High-Pressure Campaign

In telephone interviews this week, council members Rosalie M. Sher, Donald E. Schultze and Mayor Kathleen M. Navejas charged that they have been the subject of a high-pressure campaign.

Sher and Navejas said that local real estate broker G.C. (Dee) DeBaun, on behalf of Guide Dogs of the Desert, called their homes and threatened them with personal lawsuits if they did not reconsider the bingo prohibition.

Kathleen Navejas said a threat was also relayed through her husband, Carlos. In a telephone conversation, she said, DeBaun told Carlos Navejas that Kathleen Navejas, the mayor, would be hurt politically unless she approved the bingo application. “They told (council members) we better play ball with them or we all lose our jobs,” she also said.

“You can’t just come into the city and threaten people. You just can’t do that,” the mayor added.

Sher, a lawyer, also described a telephone conversation she had with DeBaun as threatening in tone. She said he told her that she would be the target of a lawsuit if she did not reconsider lifting the bingo prohibition. Sher said she told him that he could not threaten her with legal action, and ended the conversation.

“I have no intention of backing down on this,” she said.

Polite, Tense Talk

Schultze, who had a lunch meeting last week with DeBaun and Struthers, said he had a polite, but tense conversation. The pair had met with Schultze in an attempt to persuade him and other council members to order City Atty. Maurice O’Shea to settle the matter before Guide Dogs proceeded with a lawsuit against the city officials, Schultze said.

“I was in a two-against-one situation,” Schultze said, adding that the pair told him that “this will be bad for you” if the issue cannot be resolved.

DeBaun confirmed that he had conversations about a possible lawsuit, but said he was merely trying to “work things out.” He said he told the council members that a settlement would save time and money.

“I just informed them that the principals (of Guide Dogs of the Desert) were considering legal action,” DeBaun said Tuesday afternoon. “A lot of these things can be misinterpreted.”

DeBaun said that he never intended to threaten anybody. “I’m surprised that they would (characterize the conversation) in that way.”