Backers of Anaheim Card Club Lobby Residents Hard : Gambling: But city officials complain that phone solicitors’ pitch in support of the proposal is misleading.

Seizing on the city’s concern about crime, the backers of a 200-table card club proposal here have stepped up their campaign, using telephone solicitors to tell residents that the project could help hire more police officers.

While card-club backers say they are trying to build public support, city officials complained Monday that residents are being encouraged to call City Hall in support of the Anaheim Center for Entertainment even though many apparently have no clue that the center would include a casino.

“It’s absolutely wrong and unethical to call it an entertainment center and not to mention the gambling,” said Councilman Bob D. Simpson. “That’s hokey.”

Since Thursday, the city has received more than 100 calls from residents, most of them elderly, city officials said. In some cases, callers were transferred to City Hall by telephone solicitors used by Southland Entertainment Properties Inc., the backer of the card club proposal, city officials said.

The telephone campaign represents an escalation in the drive to shape public debate over the card club proposal by emphasizing the project’s benefits, city officials say, and downplaying problems, such as violent crimes and prostitution, that critics say can be associated with gambling enterprises.

A spokeswoman for Southland Entertainment Properties denied that there was any attempt to “disguise” the gambling aspect proposed for the Anaheim Center for Entertainment.

“We readily admit it includes a card club,” the spokeswoman, Kim Walsh, said. However, Walsh said she did not know how prominently the card club component was mentioned by the phone solicitors.

Walsh said the group was calling residents in “an effort to identify supporters of the project . . . (and) educate the citizens about the benefits (of the project) for Anaheim and the residents of Anaheim.”

However, city officials criticized the lobbying effort, saying that many of the callers said they support the proposed “entertainment center” but had no idea that it includes a card club that, as planned, would be the largest in Southern California.

“It’s misleading,” City Manager James D. Ruth said of the phone campaign.

“Most of the people don’t know that this ‘entertainment center’ they say they support is actually a card parlor,” he said. “(The backers) ought to be honest with these people.”

City spokesman Bret Colson said that, when callers were questioned about their support of the project, many were “not even sure what the ‘entertainment center’ is about.”

One elderly woman told city staff members that she thought bingo was the only type of gambling that would be permitted at the entertainment center.

As unveiled earlier this month, the casino would be operated by the Los Angeles-area Commerce Club and would include poker, low-ball and other card games. Investors say it would be a tourist attraction and would include an upscale restaurant and theater.

A group of investors headed by Sacramento attorney and lobbyist Michael Franchetti proposed building the $60-million card club in the northeast industrial area of the city.

The investors estimate that the entertainment center would generate up to $11 million annually in city revenues. The city could earmark that money to pay for more police officers, the group has said.

After the plans were released publicly Nov. 3, at least two members of the City Council and several community groups spoke out against such a club.

“The people who live in Anaheim are relating to me in crystal-clear terms that the city’s response to this proposal should be, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ ” Mayor Tom Daly said at the time.

Several other councilmen have expressed a willingness to review the card club proposal, especially because of the project’s financial benefits during fiscally tight times.

In face of the public rebuke by the mayor and others, the card club backers began intense lobbying efforts to sway public opinion.

One of the project’s consultants recently approached the Anaheim police union, suggesting that it support the venture as a way to pay for police salary raises. Currently, the city’s police are embroiled in a bitter labor negotiation with the city, asking for a 10% pay raise.

Police union officials said Monday they are “neutral” on the issue of card clubs.

“We’ve been trying to gauge City Hall on this issue and see which way they are going,” said Bruce Bottolfson, president of the Anaheim Police Assn.

He said that, if the City Council is going to favor such a project, his organization will want to make sure that a portion of the city’s revenue from a card club would be earmarked for police and fire services.

“But right now we’re getting a lot of negative feedback from our members and supporters about having a card club,” Bottolfson said.

If the June elections are any indication, Orange County residents do not embrace the idea of having card clubs in their communities. Voters in Cypress and Stanton defeated card club proposals by overwhelming margins.

Because of that sentiment, the backers of the Anaheim proposal are attempting to bypass a vote by residents. Along with their plans for the project, they submitted a draft ordinance that they contend would empower the council to approve the project without putting it to an election.

The city attorney has said he was not convinced that the proposed ordinance would enable the council to bypass the voters.