Backers of Card Clubs Rule Out a Second Try : Gambling: They say they will not make a new effort in light of the defeat in Cypress and Stanton.

Sobered by this week’s trouncing of gambling proposals in two Orange County cities, card-club promoters in Cypress and Stanton said Wednesday that they will abandon any consideration of bringing the volatile issue back before local voters.

“We were astonished by the turnout. It must be that the town was really determined that they didn’t want this in their community,” acknowledged Edward Allred, one of three Los Alamitos Race Course owners who pushed a plan to build a club at the track.

Allred said that if the Cypress Police Department and the City Council pressed for a reconsideration of the club issue, “then perhaps we’d take a look.” But otherwise, he said, the track partners would not venture into promoting the card-club business again in Cypress.

His comments in the wake of Tuesday’s elections marked a sharp turnaround from the campaign, when supporters of the card-club proposal widely expected the track owners to continue their campaign even if it failed on the first try.

Rejected by a margin of 64% to 36%, the $30-million Derby Club proposal lost in every Cypress precinct as more than 13,000 people--or 58% of the local electorate--turned out to vote. Only 17% of Cypress voters cast ballots in the last special election held three years ago, and city officials said Tuesday’s turnout was the largest ever for a Cypress special election.

The city of Stanton saw a much lower turnout, but the anti-gambling sentiment was even stronger there, as 80% of voters turned down the idea of legalizing card clubs in their city.

The votes mirrored a statewide consensus at the polls Tuesday as voters in four other California cities--West Hollywood and Pico Rivera in Los Angeles County, Daly City in San Mateo County, and Seaside in Monterey County--also rejected club proposals.

As final results came back Wednesday, activists on both sides of the card-club controversy in Orange County sought explanations for the landslide defeats. So great was the margin of rejection that some club opponents even began floating the idea of recalling local politicians who had backed the gambling measures during months of heated campaigning.

“We are the people who put them in there in the first place, and we are still very angry,” said Mary Ann Jones, a member of the grass-roots citizens group that opposed the card-club proposal in Cypress. “We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to our city again.”

Even before all votes were tallied Tuesday night, the election seemed over.

Just before 11 p.m., about 20 people lingered at the Cypress Golf Club, the dispirited party headquarters for the “Yes on Measure A” campaign in the city. The latest results had just arrived, and the tally was not good. With 21 of 24 precincts reporting, 4,355 residents had cast votes in favor of the Derby Club, while 7,430 voted against it.

“This is ridiculous. I can’t believe this,” said Verna Dodson, who had spent the last few months trying to persuade residents to allow a card club at the Los Alamitos Race Course. “What happened to all those people we called? Where were they?”

In Cypress, Measure A was the costliest election in city history, as racetrack owners spent more than half a million dollars on the campaign--about $100 for each yes vote they received.

“We spent a lot of money. More money than we perhaps should have. We can’t afford to do that again,” Allred conceded.

At a time of tremendous economic uncertainty, some people said they thought that the vote came down to a deep-seated fear of change in the community.

“People are scared of the unknown,” said developer Ard Keuilian, who spent $76,500 in a bid to convert his Indoor Swap Meet in Stanton into a card club. “We proposed an economic solution, a business solution. But they went hysterical and used their emotions. When emotions take over, the mind stops.”

Like the track owners in Cypress, Keuilian said Wednesday that he will not seek to open a card club in Stanton again after this week’s crushing defeat.

Sandra Sutphen, a Cal State Fullerton political science professor who studied card clubs and was hired to work for the Cypress promoters, said: “People are essentially, when it comes to their own homes, very conservative and they don’t want to see dramatic changes. . . . Because it’s gambling, and gambling is sort of sinful, they are willing to believe that card clubs are evil places, whether they are or not.”

But former Stanton Councilman David John Shawver, who took out a $2,310 loan on his credit card to help finance the club opposition, said his volunteer group’s personal approach to campaigning played more of a part in the victory than any talk of “irrational fears.”

“We didn’t spend a hell of a lot of money, and we did it personally,” Stanton Councilman Harry Dotson, who worked with Shawver to defeat Measure A, said in agreement. “I got a couple of my neighbors who were very strongly opposed to it, and told them: ‘Walk and talk.’ ”

“The issue was the potential crime. . . . That was the most salable argument against it,” Dotson said. He credited the condemnation of card clubs by Sheriff Brad Gates and Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi as major factors in the campaigns.

“The vote certainly didn’t surprise me,” Gates said Wednesday. “The facts were very vividly put in front of the voters in Cypress and Stanton. I believe they made the right choice.”

Capizzi said in an interview that he hopes that club promoters throughout the county will take country singer Kenny Rogers’ advice--”you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”--and give up the idea of card gambling in Orange County once and for all.

While the election is over, officials with Cypress Citizens Against Card Clubs, the grass-roots group that was instrumental in defeating the club, said they are now talking about recall campaigns against members of the City Council who helped put the measure on the ballot. They will also urge the City Council next week to pass an ordinance condemning card clubs.

Tuesday “night a lot of people were making comments about how they were disgusted with City Hall,” group member James Hagenbach said.

Shawver said some of his co-workers want to recall Stanton Councilman Joe V. Harris, who campaigned strongly for the card clubs. But Dotson, who debated Harris at many recent council meetings, said he wants to end the antagonism.

“I’m ready to work with him for the good of the city,” Dotson said.

Mayor Gail H. Kerry and Councilwoman Joyce C. Nicholson, outspoken Derby Club advocates, would be the likely targets of the recall drive in Cypress. Both have been criticized for using their positions to actively campaign on behalf of card-club proponents.

Kerry said she was disappointed with the vote but was ready to move on and tackle the city’s budget problems and other issues. “I stood up and was counted for what I believed in. If there is something wrong with that, that will be up to the people to decide.”