LOCAL ELECTIONS : Big Turnout a Factor in Several Close Calls : Casinos: For the second time, West Hollywood gambling proposal is dealt a losing hand. Backers may not try again.

If at first you don’t succeed--maybe you should just quit.

That was the message West Hollywood voters sent to backers of gambling, whose proposal for a local card casino was trounced Tuesday for the second time in three years.

“I don’t think they’ll try it anymore,” said Mayor Sal Guarriello, a fierce opponent of gambling. “There’s two strikes there now. I don’t think they’ll try for a third one.”

The final vote on Proposition D was 70% to 30%. A surprisingly high number of voters--4,905--cast ballot, frustrating the proponents’ hopes of drawing only sure-fire supporters to the polls amidst a low turnout.

The sponsors, who own the Cavendish West Hollywood, a private rummy and bridge club on Sunset Boulevard, were much more low key in this campaign than the last, but met with the same result. Their campaign ended with voters rejecting the measure by nearly the same margin as in 1990, when proponents alienated many voters by spending heavily on such gimmickry as pro-club videocassettes sent to 10,000 homes.

“I’m surprised,” said Jerry Gould, a partner and manager of the Cavendish club. “It’s apparent that the people at this time didn’t want a card club.” He said he did not know if the group will try again.

Residents did not buy campaign promises that the proposed 89-table club would generate $1 million a year in new tax revenues for the city, which is considering imposing its first utility tax to ward off a deficit next year.

Some voters worried that the possibility of new crime would outweigh any fiscal gains.

“I don’t think gambling is the way to go--financial benefits, but at what cost?” said Phil Lobel, a 35-year-old publicist. “There’s got to be a way to improve the financial situation of West Hollywood without gambling.”

Residents of the East End, where the card club was proposed, were just as skeptical of claims that the casino would help revive their sagging, crime-troubled neighborhood.

Outside a polling place in Plummer Park, Bill Selby predicted that the club, which would have been half the size of big casinos elsewhere in Los Angeles County, eventually would have been expanded.

“We have enough problems down here,” he said.

The measure won support this time from business leaders and some community activists who were against the previous measure but saw the card club as a way to avoid a utility tax. But all five members of the City Council joined the Public Safety Commission in opposing the proposal.

The race lacked the excitement and vitriol of the 1990 campaign, where the prospect of poker-playing made the stakes much higher. In an attempt to quiet fears, the Cavendish this time dropped poker from its proposal and cut the number of tables proposed from 200 to 89.

The initiative would have allowed all other legal games, though club owners said they planned to emphasize panguingue-- a fast-moving game related to rummy--along with the games already offered at the Cavendish.

The club now awards prizes. Under California law, card-casino customers rent seats by the hour and bet against each other.

The most successful of the state’s 300 card clubs--such as those in the City of Commerce and Bell Gardens--produce more than $10 million a year in taxes for their host cities.

West Hollywood was one four Southland cities that rejected card clubs Tuesday night. Pico Rivera voters narrowly turned down a $35-million casino proposed for a site next to the San Gabriel River Freeway, and Cypress and Stanton thwarted efforts to introduce card clubs in Orange County.

The results may put an end to a recent rush for casinos in cities where recession and shrinking revenues have forced service cutbacks and new taxes or talk of new taxes. Inglewood and Compton approved clubs last year, and Bellflower and Lynwood plan card-club votes later this year.

“Proponents of card clubs should think very, very, very carefully before proposing a club,” said Sandra Sutphen, a political science professor at Cal State Fullerton who has studied card clubs and worked for the Cypress measure. “People just don’t want them.”

Sutphen said promises of a jackpot of new municipal revenues were ineffective in the face of widespread voter suspicion of City Hall spending in general.

“People are very anti-government,” she said. “They’re opposed to (card clubs) because they don’t want to see local government get more money.”

That sentiment was audible in West Hollywood.

“The city doesn’t always have its priorities in the right place,” said consultant Carl Cronin, who voted against the initiative.

He said he was unmoved by campaign arguments billing the club as a way to avoid a 4% utility tax, which is included in a budget proposal scheduled for City Council approval June 21.

West Hollywood

Measure 100% Precincts Reporting

Votes % Yes 1,484 30 No 3,421 70