Religion, Commerce Clash in Casino Debate : Gambling: Ministers oppose building the $9-million card club in Compton. Supporters cite the tax revenue that the facility would generate for city services.

Religion and commerce clashed at a public hearing Thursday night as Compton officials prepared to decide whether to approve a card club casino.

The card club was hailed as a financial salvation by its supporters and denounced by several dozen ministers, business people and others who expressed their views in a packed City Hall hearing.

With the mayor and one council member absent, and three other council members having indicated their support, the five-member City Council was expected to approve the proposed $9-million casino.

Mayor Walter R. Tucker III, an outspoken critic of the project, who was elected to Congress last month, was said to be out of town attending a congressional orientation session. He sent a letter restating his opposition.

“This kind of vice brings a certain kind of people. And with it comes disease, death, divorce,” said the Rev. Charles Patrick, who with two other clergymen demanded that the casino be put to a vote of Compton residents.

Supporters argued that the City Council should not be swayed by moral arguments.

“It’s time for the city to separate business and religion,” said B. Kwaku Duren, an attorney. “We can’t run the city on what local ministers say.”

Another casino supporter, Detective Michael Sean Markey of the Compton Police Officers Assn., told the council that similar casinos in Southern California have not significantly increased crime, adding that the extra tax revenue a card club would generate would help the city’s sorely depleted police force.

“I’m in favor and I hope I don’t get too many rocks and bottles for that,” Markey said.

Since the casino proposal was introduced in early September, the public debate has been immersed in religious and financial rhetoric.

Opponents led by Tucker, an ordained minister, have lobbied the city’s 121 churches, urging members to denounce the project as evil.

“As your mayor . . . I appeal to you to join me in prayer and fasting against the enemy that seeks to divide and destroy our community,” Tucker wrote in an “Action Line” letter to the city’s ministers. “Because truly we are in a spiritual warfare.”

An anti-casino community group, Citizens for Accountable Government, launched recall proceedings last month against the three-member council majority who favor the development. Council members Bernice Woods, Jane D. Robbins and Omar Bradley were charged in recall papers with “conspiring to bring gambling” to Compton.

The notion of spiritual warfare has been called ridiculous by casino proponent Phyllis Frierson and her group, Community in Action for the Betterment of Compton.

In flyers and letters distributed throughout Compton, Frierson and developers have concentrated on the revenue jackpot promised by casino owners.

Compton Entertainment Inc., the newly formed company proposing the entertainment center and card parlor, has promised the city $2 million within 90 days of the council’s agreement to the development. Compton Entertainment officials say the firm will lease an eight-acre parcel of the nearly empty Compton auto mall and build a $9-million complex with the casino, two restaurants, a bar and nightclub.

Rouben Kandilian, the group’s president, said no retail shops or theaters are planned in the initial development, but the group hopes that those elements will be included in an expansion.