Tuesday’s Vote Is a High-Stake Gamble for Cathedral City Mayor

In 1987, businessman George Hardie decided to build a card parlor on a chunk of land he owns in this desert community next door to Palm Springs.

But when Hardie--managing partner of the Bicycle Club casino in Bell Gardens--shared his plans with a few City Council members, he got the cold shoulder.

Never one to back down with a whimper, Hardie figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. He bought a condominium in Cathedral City and ran for City Council. Mounting an expensive campaign, he won a seat in April, 1988, and was promptly named mayor by his council colleagues.

Before his freshman year was half over, Hardie, 55, had resurrected his card parlor proposal. He then launched a petition drive that landed a measure on the ballot to legalize casinos in Cathedral City.

The denouement to this tale comes Tuesday, when voters here will decide whether to permit people to play cards for money in their town. While the gambling issue itself is controversial, more than that is at stake: In a sense, the special election is a referendum on George Hardie, Mayor.

“It is (about) me, absolutely,” Hardie acknowledged last week in an interview at his plush, wood-paneled office above the Bicycle Club’s jam-packed gaming tables.

His opponents agree: “The issue is Hardie,” said Anne Zachary, 71, a coordinator of anti-gambling forces in Cathedral City.

“He’s a carpetbagger, a smart businessman who came in here determined to get his casino built. But I think he misjudged this community. . . . We’re not that stupid.”

Two measures are on Tuesday’s ballot. The first would repeal Cathedral City’s current ban on card-room gambling and the second would regulate the games. If voters approve, draw poker, lowball, pan and other games allowed under California law could be played 24 hours a day by those 21 and older. No Las Vegas-style gambling would be permitted.

Only one gaming license for every 25,000 residents--there are about 29,000 people in Cathedral City today--could be issued under the regulations, and a companion hotel development would be required along with any card parlor built. Up to 10% of the gaming revenue earned annually would be shared with the city.

So far, Hardie’s proposal for a $25-million hotel and gaming complex--the Emerald Court Resort--on land he owns in the center of town is the only plan tailored to the proposed ordinance.

The campaign over the gambling measures has been a nasty one, waged with verve despite the blistering desert sun.

Gambling foes have invoked God, the Bible and traditional values in their battle to keep card parlors out of town. On the other side, Hardie and his followers have borrowed from Voltaire--the French satirist who railed against religious intolerance--to argue that the issue is a matter of freedom of choice.

Opponents of card parlors have accused Hardie of using his office merely to expand his gaming empire, while the mayor has called anti-gambling forces “loonies” who want “everybody to go to bed at 8 o’clock every night.”

Shadowed by Detectives

Tactics have often been imaginative. One anti-gambling crusader said she and her family were trailed for a month by private investigators but it was never learned who hired the detectives. More recently, Hardie and his Cathedral City home were monitored by opponents, who unveiled their finding at a press conference and accused him of being an “absentee mayor.”

The latest campaign twist came when Hardie suggested that a form letter he received from Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp proved that the state’s top law enforcement official has no problem with card clubs. The letter, which Hardie displayed during a televised debate, asked the mayor to support Van de Kamp in his gubernatorial race. That invitation was withdrawn, however, when Van de Kamp learned that Mayor George Hardie was the same George Hardie who manages the Bicycle Club. The attorney general’s campaign manager labeled Hardie’s use of the letter “a questionable tactic.”

Hardie and the 40 Southern California investors seeking to build the Cathedral City resort have provided almost all of the financing for the pro-gambling forces, who had raised $187,600 as of the most recent campaign disclosure deadline.

Although hopeful his development will be profitable, Hardie says self-interest is not his main motivation in pushing the initiative. Instead, he said, Cathedral City--a rapidly growing community with few tax-generating businesses to support its swelling municipal budget--needs the jobs and estimated $604,000 in annual net revenue that would be generated by the card club.

Long viewed as the “poor stepchild” of the Coachella Valley, Cathedral City needs a resort with unique appeal to help it compete for tourists with better known neighboring cities, Hardie argues.

Opponents--who have raised about $45,000--say Hardie’s got it all wrong. Permitting gambling will harm property values, deter vacationing families and usher in a host of “unsavory characters” who will make Cathedral City’s streets unsafe, said Carol Engelhard, 37, a mother of three and a leading anti-gambling crusader.

‘It’s Frightening’

“This thing would be half a mile from a brand-new elementary school. Half a mile,” said Engelhard, whose group was launched with $5,000 from the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, an activist religious group best known for its fervent crusades against abortion and homosexuality. “To think of gamblers drinking all day and then driving down streets our children cross, it’s frightening.”

A primary theme in the gambling debate has been Hardie’s performance as mayor. For starters, his critics maintain that it is inappropriate for Hardie to serve as the city’s top elected official while pushing a ballot measure that would benefit him personally. Hardie disagrees, as did the city attorney in an opinion earlier this year.

Others complain that the mayor runs the city from his casino in Bell Gardens--requiring expensive long-distance phone calls between him and city staff--and spends little time mixing with local citizens. A member of one anti-gambling group staked out Hardie’s condominium and found he spent just six nights there in August.

Hardie, who has a home in Downey, counters that most people leave Cathedral City “when it’s 120 degrees in August” and argues that he is more accessible than any previous mayor of the city, which incorporated in 1981.

Sincerity Questioned

Other detractors question Hardie’s sincerity, charging that he ran for mayor merely to boost his chances of building a casino in town. As Engelhard sees it, Hardie is an exploiter using Cathedral City as a “testing ground” before expanding gambling ventures to other communities.

Hardie rejects that contention, insisting his political career has nothing to do with card parlors. As for his critics’ predictions that he seeks to launch gaming clubs in other cities around California, Hardie says that is true. Indeed, he recently formed a political action committee to make donations to state lawmakers who might support legislation favorable to the gambling industry.

The mayor, however, believes his business ventures deserve praise, not criticism.

“I am looking in other cities, wherever there’s an opportunity,” he said, declining to disclose any prospective card club locations. “I don’t believe there are any limits. I admire people who try to achieve. Who moves the world forward? People like me, entrepreneurs who risk and try to make life better.”