Hotel Fails in Try to Get Card Room Plan on Ballot

Taking a strong stand against gambling, Norwalk City Council members have unanimously rejected a proposal that would have allowed voters to approve the city’s first casino in the November election.

Moments after Tuesday night’s vote, hotel owner D. J. Brata vowed to start an initiative drive to add an 80-table card club to his Saddleback Inn on Firestone Boulevard.

Brata said he hopes to collect enough signatures to put the issue before city voters in a special election in February or March, 1991.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Brata, 33, who had pleaded with the council to let residents decide the issue. “I thought it was totally unfair.”

But council members expressed concern that gambling could bring more crime, traffic and parking problems to this city of 90,000. Brata’s proposal also came under scrutiny because George Hardie, a minority partner in the controversial Bicycle Club of Bell Gardens, would be a partner in Brata’s Norwalk casino.

Brata’s pledge to start an initiative campaign portends a fierce battle in coming months. Mayor Luigi A. Vernola served notice that he will campaign to keep the card club out of Norwalk.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” Vernola said. “I want to protect the interests of my family.”

There was standing room only in the council chambers as Brata outlined his proposal to spend $25 million to build the card room and renovate his 250-room hotel. Two new restaurants would be added, as well as new banquet and meeting rooms, he said. It would be called the Norwalk Plaza Hotel and Casino.

Brata said the new complex would mean at least $1 million a year in gaming-tax revenue for the city. New business attracted by the casino would also increase the bed-tax revenue the city receives from the Saddleback Inn, he said.

Brata also said his proposal would create 750 new jobs, most of which would be filled by Norwalk residents.

The hotel has been struggling financially, Brata said, with a 40% occupancy rate.

As of June 25, Brata owed the city $35,730 in outstanding taxes, interest and penalties, City Manager Richard R. Powers said.

Nineteen residents and business people testified in favor of a November vote. Some said they would welcome a casino because of the jobs and revenues it would generate, money that could be spent on providing child care and other city services.

“We need someone to help us upgrade our neighborhoods, and this is a great way to do it,” resident Alicia Ortiz said.

Others expressed no opinion on the casino but said they have a right to vote directly on such an important issue.

About an equal number of residents, local clergy and a representative of the United Neighborhoods Organization spoke against the casino and against such a popular vote, contending that gambling would bring loan-sharking, bookmaking, prostitution and political corruption into Norwalk.

The recent legal problems of the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens cast a shadow over Brata’s proposal because Hardie, general manager and part owner of the club, would be Brata’s partner in the proposed casino.

The Bicycle Club was seized by the federal government in April and placed under Bell Gardens municipal control. A federal jury in Miami found four men guilty in a complex racketeering scheme that involved investing drug-smuggling profits in the building of the club. But the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami has said Hardie’s partnership was not involved in wrongdoing.