LOCAL ELECTIONS / WEST HOLLYWOOD GAMBLING : Vote on Card Casino Nears
West Hollywood voters Tuesday will once again decide whether to allow legalized gambling in the city.
The owners of the private Cavendish West Hollywood club want to open an 89-table card casino on La Brea Avenue that could offer all legal games except poker. The same proponents sponsored a proposal for a 200-table poker club in 1990, but voters turned it down by a 3-to-1 ratio.
Backers of Proposition D say a card club could provide up to $1 million a year in city taxes and fees and shore up the city’s depressed East End. Opponents say a card club would spawn crime and argue that any earnings mostly would be lost to higher police costs.
The campaign for the proposal lacked the intensity of the race three years ago, when owners of the bridge-and-rummy club spent nearly $300,000 on their losing effort. Spending was running at about half that amount by last week, and opponents had only begun an organized campaign against the measure.
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