Hollywood Park Card Club Fading Before the Finish : Gambling: Racetrack must clear hurdle of state law, which prohibits publicly held corporations from owning gaming licenses.

In the two months since Inglewood voters approved a card club for Hollywood Park racetrack, the club has become a source of great hope in the city’s search for economic salvation.

Job seekers are filling out applications, entrepreneurs have opened a trade school to train would-be card dealers, and city officials are trying to borrow money against future card club revenues to plug holes in the city budget.

There’s just one problem: Hollywood Park has yet to apply for a gaming license. And when it does, it will face a legal hurdle that could delay the card club project--if not derail it altogether.

The hurdle is state law, which doesn’t allow publicly held corporations to own card club licenses. And Hollywood Park, which has said all along it would own and operate the club, is publicly held, meaning its stock is publicly bought and sold.

“We only register individuals,” said Paul Bishop, California’s deputy attorney general in charge of gaming licenses. “We don’t register corporations.”

Bishop says the state insists on individual ownership because it wants to know the identity of everyone who has “direct or indirect” interest in card clubs. With publicly held corporations, he said, ownership of a club is impossible to track.

Despite the looming legal questions, G. Michael Finnigan, Hollywood Park’s chief financial officer, insisted this week that “Hollywood Park will be the owner.”

Members of the Inglewood City Council, however, have become anxious about the ownership question. At a recent meeting, Councilmen Garland Hardeman and Daniel Tabor expressed concern about approving a card club ordinance for the city before knowing the identity of the owner.

The ordinance, which would detail such city requirements for the club as operating hours and tax rates, is due to be presented to the council next month.

In a testy exchange with the council, City Atty. Howard Rosten dismissed the ownership questions as “speculative.” The ordinance, he said, does not need to contain the name of the owner. Instead, Rosten explained, the name of the owner goes on the city business license that the card club must obtain before it can open. At that time, he said, the council will have the power to accept or reject the owner.

It is unclear how the ownership question will be resolved. Finnigan said Hollywood Park is “working” with the attorney general’s office. But Bishop offered a sharply different account. He said he has told Hollywood Park there is nothing to talk about until the park applies for a license.

It is conceivable Hollywood Park’s largest stockholder and chairman, R.D. Hubbard, could apply for a license listing himself as the owner of the card club.

According to Finnigan, however, Hubbard will not do that. Indeed, Hubbard might not obtain a license under his name even if he tried. Under the state law governing gambling, the attorney general may deny a license to a person who has an interest in gaming operations outside California that are not legal in this state.

Hubbard owns racetracks in three other states. Two of them feature dog racing, which is outlawed in California. Hubbard is vacationing abroad and could not be reached for comment.

For residents who opposed the card club referendum when it came before the voters last fall, the doubts surrounding the project come as no surprise.

“In the campaign, we told the City Council that a corporation could not hold the license and Hollywood Park said we were liars,” said Michael Triggs, an Inglewood resident who was the paid manager of the anti-gaming campaign. “Well, who’s the liar now?”