Card Clubs Losing; 2 Newcomers Gain Seats in Inglewood

Pico Rivera voters were narrowly rejecting a card club in their city Tuesday and a proposed West Hollywood casino appeared to face even longer odds.

The proposed Pico Rivera casino, which supporters said would pump up to $6 million into the fiscally strapped city, appeared a certain loser with all precincts counted but a handful of absentee votes left to verify by next week. West Hollywood residents who voted by absentee ballot soundly rejected a card club measure similar to one voters turned down three years ago.

Early returns on a non-binding vote in Carson showed strong support for the idea of taking the city’s schools out of the Los Angeles Unified School District and establishing a new district for the city’s 15,000 students. Carson voters also were deciding a City Council race with a record-setting eight candidates vying for a single seat.

Meanwhile, Inglewood voters toppled longtime City Council incumbents Daniel K. Tabor and Anthony Scardenzan, replacing them with political newcomers Curren Price Jr., a consultant who also owns a print shop, and Judith L. Dunlap, a community activist and former teacher. Dunlap becomes the only woman on the council and only the third ever elected.

The card club measures, along with similar initiatives in the Orange County cities of Cypress and Stanton, were expected to influence a recent rush for casino money by cash-starved cities. Both efforts to introduce card clubs to Orange County were losing by large margins, with most votes counted in Cypress but few ballots tallied in Stanton.

Opponents of the Pico Rivera measure cheered their apparent victory.

“The people of Pico Rivera know what is good for them and know what is bad for them,” said the Rev. Richard Ochoa, who led a church coalition that said gambling is immoral. “In the end, it shows that God is mightier than the almighty dollar.”

Inglewood and Compton approved clubs last year, joining five cities in Los Angeles County that have card clubs. Lynwood and Bellflower plan votes later this year, while Garden Grove and Anaheim are considering similar proposals.

Sponsors of Tuesday’s measures had promised residents millions of dollars in tax revenue from the clubs, plus hundreds of new jobs. Opponents questioned the reliability of card clubs as revenue sources and maintained that casinos would breed crime and swallow any city earnings through higher police costs.

Supporters of West Hollywood’s card club measure were soundly defeated at the polls with a similar measure in 1990 despite lavish spending. This time their promises of $1 million a year in new tax revenues won support at a time when West Hollywood officials are considering the city’s first utility tax to escape a projected deficit. The club would pay the city up to 14% of its income, calculated on a sliding scale.

California law dictates that card club players rent seats by the hour and bet against one another. The biggest of the state’s 300 card clubs--in the City of Commerce and Bell Gardens--earn more than $10 million a year for host cities. Some clubs have closed.

In Pico Rivera, where a utility tax was enacted to stem a budget deficit last year, voters were wooed mainly with promises of new tax revenue from a proposed casino near the San Gabriel River. The project was backed by businesses and the City Council, but opponents credited their victory to crucial support from some key figures, such as Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Assemblywoman Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk). In addition, a coalition of church leaders said a casino would undermine moral values in the city of 60,000.

The Carson school measure was a non-binding poll commissioned by the City Council to gauge voters’ feelings on seceding from the Los Angeles and Compton unified school districts.

The city’s Human Relations Commission had said it would be feasible to form a separate district of about 15,000 students at a cost of $60 million.

With more than half the votes counted in Carson’s eight-candidate City Council race, surprise leader Lorelie S. Olaes held a healthy edge over her nearest competitors to fill a vacancy left when Juanita McDonald was elected to the state Assembly last fall.

The race was seen as being important for the African-American community, which makes up about a quarter of the city’s 84,000 residents. Some of the five black candidates said they feared that the council would be without an African-American member unless one of them is elected.