CYPRESS : Find New Bingo Site, School Club Told

Responding to complaints, the City Council has instructed the Cypress High School Booster Club to find another spot to hold weekly bingo games.

More than 300 people jammed the council chambers on Monday night and listened as residents living near the Boys and Girls Club on Moody Street, where the games are held, squared off against members of the Cypress High School Booster Club, which operates the games as a way to raise money for various school activities.

Residents complained that the Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday bingo games had clogged their streets and even prevented them from parking in their own driveways.

About 200 parents showed up to support the booster club. Although they sympathized with the residents, they argued that the money from bingo is needed to pay for the school band and several other athletic programs.

Unable to find any immediate solution to the traffic woes and not willing to throw the booster club out of its current location this week, the council instructed both groups to establish an interim plan that would ease traffic until a new, permanent bingo site can be found.

“It was clear that there were a number of issues in the long run that didn’t have any solution,” Assistant City Manager David Barrett said. Council members “asked that the boosters get together with the Boys Club and work together on long-range plans in terms of how they might move.”

Currently, the club has 36 parking spaces. But as many as 190 cars jam the neighborhood during bingo, residents said. City staff estimates that more than 200 parking spaces would be needed to accommodate the traffic if a new bingo club were developed in Cypress.

Although their intentions were clear, council members did not put a deadline on when the bingo games should cease. Instead, they suggested moving the games to local high schools that also hold bingo.

The council action Monday is the latest in a series of steps taken by city officials to settle the 6-month-old dispute between residents and bingo players.

Residents said they can live with the latest plan, knowing that eventually the bingo games will stop. “We will live with it,” said Don Eldridge, who lives across the street from the Boys and Girls Club, “as long as we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”