Youth Group Resurrects Plan to Build Oxnard Card Club : Charity: City Council is expected to consider the Big Brothers-Big Sisters casino proposal early next year.

In an effort to boost its funding, Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Ventura County has resurrected a plan to open a card club in Oxnard.

The nonprofit group wants to build the $7-million, 30,000- to 60,000-square-foot casino on 10 acres in the city’s booming northeast industrial and commercial area near Via del Norte and Paseo Mercado.

The organization withdrew an application last spring to build a poker club and restaurant at Channel Islands Harbor after complaints by area residents.

“This is not going to be anything like Las Vegas,” said Lynne West, executive director of Big Brothers-Big Sisters. “We are kind of out there as pioneers, providing something that the community doesn’t have while benefiting the children of Ventura County.”

If approved by the City Council, Big Brothers-Big Sisters would hold the license for the card club while the Ventura-based Harbor Club Management would oversee the operation and hire a full-time manager for the facility.

The council is expected to consider a preliminary proposal early next year.

The card club would generate $10 million to $30 million a year in gross revenue, with 10% of the profits going to Big Brothers-Big Sisters to expand its programs. West said she expects Big Brothers-Big Sisters to receive at least $350,000 in the club’s first year of operation.

A cut of the expected profits also would go to the Oxnard Elementary School Educational Fund, a parent-run fund-raising organization.

The organization matches children from single-parent families with adults who serve as role models. There are 100 matches countywide, with another 100 children on a waiting list.

The nonprofit agency’s annual budget of $200,000 is down $100,000 from a few years ago, West said, and staff has been cut from seven to three in the same period. In addition, money shortages forced the closure of offices in Oxnard and Santa Paula in the late 1980s.

“I think the merging of nonprofits with the business community has to be the wave of the future,” West said. “We can’t as nonprofits sit down and put our hands out all the time and expect someone to sponsor our programs.”

The Oxnard card club, a 24-hour-a-day casino, would feature draw poker, Texas hold ‘em, Omaha, pan and some forms of Asian poker. The club would have a restaurant and 80 to 100 card tables.

It would create 300 permanent, full-time jobs and would produce $500,000 to $2 million a year in revenue for the city.

There are about 300 licensed card clubs throughout the state and a handful of such clubs in the county, said Frank Marasco, vice president of a Ventura-based land development company that is a partner in Harbor Club Management.

The club doesn’t participate in the card games, Marasco said, but makes its money by charging players a fee.

“There is a definite need for an entertainment facility like this in Ventura County,” Marasco said.

West said the local Big Brothers-Big Sisters organization is the only one of 525 chapters nationwide to suggest a card club to boost its funding.

“I think this is a great entertainment opportunity for Ventura County,” she said.