Unique Alliance Helps Deal Blow to Card Casino

West Hollywood voters trounced the city’s legalized gambling initiative by a margin of 3 to 1, thanks to an unprecedented alliance of city officials and community organizations.

But most pundits expect the city’s brush with harmony to be brief, and they predict a return to the city’s normal state of disarray.

Proposition AA, a measure that sought to create the first legalized gambling parlor on the Westside, was defeated 8,066 votes to 2,461. The club was to be modeled after the large establishments in the cities of Commerce and Bell Gardens.

The measure took the thrashing despite a $300,000 campaign by a group of investors, headed by New York businessman Philip Marks, who hoped to own the card club.

“This is a very decisive defeat,” said Mayor John Heilman. “The community is saying we are not going to be bought.”

The alliance of community groups opposing the measure included renters, landlords, all five City Council members and representatives of the city’s business and homeowner community. They argued that a gambling establishment would breed organized crime and prostitution and increase traffic along the city’s already clogged streets.

Now that Proposition AA has been defeated, city officials expect many other issues that had been put on the back burner to re-emerge.

For example, many in the city’s business community are fuming over the council’s rush to approve a $1-million business-license tax before Tuesday’s election. And anger over the city’s funding of a homeless shelter on the east side of the city has caused some residents to call for an initiative to shut it down. Also, there have been persistent complaints about the lack of police protection. And eastside residents still say the city neglects their end of town.

“There are a lot of issues that still need to be worked on,” said Councilwoman Abbe Land. “We were able to form a coalition to work for the defeat of this initiative. Hopefully, we can continue to work together.”

But others doubt that an effort to work in harmony can succeed.

“The schism between opposing groups in the city is so wide that I don’t believe a consensus can be reached without grass-roots force,” said Jeanne Dobrin, a community activist who was an outspoken opponent of the card club.

The backers of the card club initiative, the owners of Cavendish West Hollywood--a small, private bridge-and-rummy-club--had sought to tap into residents’ frustrations with the city when they wrote the gambling initiative.

The measure required that three-fourths of the revenue that would be garnered by the city, as much as $10 million, be earmarked for law enforcement, AIDS-related programs and services for the elderly and gay and lesbian communities. Other funds would have been set aside for the revitalization of the city’s rundown eastside, where the club was to be located.

To get their message across, proponents spent $30,000 to produce a video extolling the virtues of the club and mailed copies to 10,000 households throughout the city. Another $200,000 was spent on, among other things, an Orange County telemarketing firm to make calls, produce mailers and keep several spokesman on staff. Proponents also spent $50,000 to hire a professional signature-gathering firm to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

Some opponents of the measure, suspicious of the large amount spent by proponents, charged that the campaign was being run by East Coast gambling interests.

“We did our best to explain our side, but it was hard to counter the suspicions many people may have had about crime and congestion,” said Steve Price, a spokesman for the Yes on Prop AA campaign. “We managed to allay some fears about the club but apparently not enough.”

Bruce Decker, the chief spokesman and author of the initiative, said he would not comment on whether the investors would seek another initiative on the measure. “We plan to make a decision on that after we analyze the results,” he said.