Battle Over Card Club Intensifies as Vote Nears : Gambling: Opponents say the facility, if built, would attract crime. Supporters say it would bring badly needed revenue and jobs.

Developers of a Pico Rivera card club take their $35-million project to the voters Tuesday, promising to pump millions of dollars in revenue into a shrinking city treasury and to provide hundreds of jobs for residents.

The casino’s advocates, who have a hefty war chest and the backing of the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce board, have saturated the city with colorful mailers and sent volunteers door-to-door to drum up support.

But Palace 605, so-named because it is next to the 605 freeway, by the San Gabriel River, faces stiff opposition.

The proposal is opposed by a county supervisor, a member of the Assembly, a coalition of churches and all five members of the El Rancho Unified school board. The anti-casino forces, operating on a shoestring budget, have worked phone banks and sent out low-cost mailers warning that a casino would bring more crime and undermine moral values.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina, a Pico Rivera native whose family still lives there, spoke out against the proposal recently at a community forum. Assemblywoman Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk) recently sent residents an anti-casino letter questioning whether the gambling parlor would promote “family values.”

Casino advocates said their biggest challenge has been to calm voters’ fears that a casino would bring more drugs, prostitution and gang activity into the city.

Opponents have been trying “to scare the pants off of people,” Mayor Alberto Natividad said. “But what people have to remember is that these are very extensive revenues, and they are coming at a critical time in the city’s financial history.”

Proposition A, which would allow the Diamond Bar-based MWB Development to build a casino and operate it around the clock, was placed on the ballot by the City Council earlier this year.

The proposal is one of several casino measures on the ballot Tuesday in Los Angeles and Orange County cities. Among them are proposals in Cypress, Stanton and West Hollywood. A card club measure will appear on the ballot in Bellflower in August, and Lynwood residents are scheduled to vote on a casino proposal in November.

If Palace 605 is approved Tuesday, developers said, construction would begin later this year on the two-story, 100,000-square-foot, 100-table gaming facility. It would be built on 15 acres of privately owned, undeveloped property in the city’s northeast corner.

The club would offer traditional card games such as draw and stud poker, plus high-stakes Asian games such as pai gow, super pan nine and Asian poker, said developer Claude Booker, the former city manager of Bell Gardens, home of the successful Bicycle Club casino. Other MWB partners include former Bell Gardens City Atty. Peter Wallin and Walnut real estate developer Michael E. Macke.

Card clubs make their money by taking a percentage of each bet, or by renting seats to players, who bet only against each other, not the house. The casinos then turn over a portion of their income to the cities in which they are located. In Pico Rivera, developers predict that their casino would add $6 million a year to the city’s $13-million general fund.

The prospect of a significant jump in revenues is appealing to city officials, who have seen the general fund decline steadily since 1988, when the fund topped $17 million. Even the recent passage of a utility tax generating $1.3 million annually won’t offset the losses, City Manager Dennis Courtemarche said.

The city has reduced its staff by 20% through a hiring freeze, reduced such services as street sweeping, and has frozen staff salaries, he said.

“Without a major infusion of cash to our city, there is going to be a dramatic reduction in what we can provide to residents,” Courtemarche said. “To deal effectively with all the social problems in this city, we need money. Without it, we would just have to set our sights much lower.”

Courtemarche admits there’s no guarantee that card clubs can be as successful as the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens or the Commerce Casino in Commerce. Each generates more than $10 million a year for those cities. A Bell casino, which at one time pumped millions of dollars into city coffers, has been closed for nearly a year. And Huntington Park receives only about $280,000 a year from the Huntington Park Casino.

“The difference (in the Pico Rivera proposal) is that we have good developers who can deliver,” Courtemarche said. “We’re at the point where we have to take the chance.”

Casino opponents said they would rather see officials try to attract “more wholesome, family-oriented” businesses, such as theaters, department stores or other retail outlets.

“What we really need is an entertainment center, some place where we can all participate in family activities,” said the Rev. Richard Ochoa, a pastor at the city’s Lord’s Vineyard Fellowship and head of a coalition of 13 area churches opposing the casino. “I don’t deny that the city is hurting, but are (the residents) going to pay a higher cost in the end?”

Pico Rivera officials said they are ready to take the risk. For them, the projection of about 1,200 new jobs, in a city where unemployment has risen above 10%, is almost as alluring as the projected increase in annual revenues.

Federal hiring guidelines prohibit developers from guaranteeing jobs to Pico Rivera residents, but MWB has pledged to give $40,000 to the city for job training if Proposition A passes. City Councilman John Chavez said the money will give local residents “more experience and a leg up on other applicants” for casino jobs, which include security guards, accountants, clerks, bartenders and cashiers.

But opponent Danny Molina, Supervisor Molina’s brother, expressed concern that most of the jobs would be in low-paying, menial positions. “We don’t want the $5-an-hour jobs,” he told a cheering audience at a recent forum. “We want quality jobs for our community!”

Casino opponents at the forum also kept returning to the issue of crime.

They portrayed card club patrons as “ruthless and cutthroat,” and pointed to a recent report by San Diego Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller Jr., which said some of the consultants hired by card clubs for Asian gaming rooms “have ties to Asian organized crime.”

Resident Paul Luna predicted a casino would bring “more gangs, more drugs and alcohol and more violence. Why would we want all that?”

But George Kling, a former FBI investigator and security consultant hired by MWB, said at the forum that “crime is no more prevalent in a card club than in any other place in the city. I have found virtually no increase in numbers of assaults, robbery, and burglary in cities with card clubs.”

Kling said the casino would have between 100 and 125 security officers, making it one of the safest places in the city.

He acknowledged there have been incidents in which a winner is followed home and robbed, usually at gunpoint. But, he added, these types of crimes are “no more common than robberies at (automated teller machines), and we still use those every day.”

A slick, four-page brochure mailed to residents early in the campaign played on concerns about increased crime. The cover showed a masked man pointing a handgun directly at the reader. Beneath the gun are the words, “Card Rooms Bring Strangers.” Inside, the mailer asks, “Why invite crime into our city?”

The mailer was sent out by the California Sports, Entertainment and Gaming Assn., a political action committee that paid nearly $6,000 to produce and mail the brochure, according to campaign expenditure reports filed last week. The PAC also spent more than $3,000 on anti-casino signs, according to the documents.

The committee was organized in late March for the purpose of “voter education and awareness,” according to papers filed with the secretary of state. The document listed only the PAC’s treasurer, Los Angeles campaign consultant David L. Gould. Gould’s associate, Renata Lloyd-Smith, refused to disclose other officers in the PAC, or whom it represented.

According to other campaign expenditure reports filed last week, Ochoa’s anti-casino group has spent just over $1,200, and Citizens of Pico Rivera Against Proposition A, another anti-casino group, has spent $849.

The Pico Rivera Committee for Proposition A has spent $90,137, mostly on absentee-ballot efforts, mailers and overhead for the campaign headquarters, partner Booker said. The committee has raised $125,000, with partners in MWB Development providing $80,000 of that amount through loans.

Officials at City Hall said they are expecting a larger than usual turnout Tuesday. By late last week, the city clerk received more than 1,300 absentee ballots, more than twice the number cast in the City Council election in April, 1992.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The special election will cost the city about $45,000, officials said.