Rural Town’s Voters OK Poker Casino

In a vote that wasn’t even close, this tiny Central Valley raisin town has given its nod to the biggest poker casino in the San Joaquin Valley.

Tuesday’s special election was over before it began. Of the 694 votes to legalize gambling, 497 came by way of absentee ballots. Opponents of the measure could muster only 465 votes total.

“Boy, he killed us,” said gambling foe Kenny Bedrosian, referring to Michael J. Schreiber, the sponsor of the casino measure. “I can’t believe it.”

“We never saw the absentee ballots coming,” said Randy Davis, another opponent. “By the time we realized what he had done, it was too late.”

Schreiber, the unemployed son of a Los Angeles physician, landed here in March promising 300 new jobs and untold millions for the local kitty. All the citizens of Fowler had to do was approve his plan for a 40-table poker palace to be built on an onion field at the edge of town.

The campaign was billed as a turning point for Fowler, population 3,665, seven miles south of Fresno.

A vote for the casino was seen as a vote for the development that has made the valley around Fowler one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. A “no” vote was reaffirmation of the rural virtues that some in this farming town hold dear.

While opponents took out full-page ads in the local weekly vilifying Schreiber as a harbinger of debauchery, the 40-year-old promoter quietly plodded the streets registering new voters and carrying absentee ballots.

Many of the 200 residents he signed to the rolls were young, first-time Latino voters like Mac Ramos, 18. Ramos said his vote for the casino was intended as a message to the wealthy farmers who fought against the measure.

“These raisin families have been calling the shots for too long,” Ramos said. “This town needs jobs for low-income people and Michael has promised to do that.”

In passing the measure, Fowler thumbed its nose at the Fresno County sheriff, district attorney and Board of Supervisors. All opposed the casino on the grounds that it could be a boon to organized crime.

Much of the opposition centered on the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, the inspiration for Schreiber’s casino. The Southern California poker club was built with laundered drug money and its pai gow tables have been magnets for pimps, drug dealers and loan sharks.

“I could say something that sounds like I’m gloating,” Schreiber said after the victory. “But I want this city to come together for this project. I’m going to need everyone’s input.”

Before the casino can be built, the City Council must write an ordinance and Schreiber must secure the financing and pass a background check by the state Department of Justice.

“I’ll have no shortage of investors now,” he said.