The Public Won’t Play Games : Even in a recession, are card clubs more trouble than they are worth?

Hard times draw proposals for legalized gambling in Southern California as surely as sugar draws ants. This year alone, voters in West Hollywood, Lynwood, Pico Rivera and Bellflower in Los Angeles County and Stanton and Cypress in Orange County wisely have rejected campaigns to license card clubs.

With the voters on a roll, club backers have switched tactics: Now they are turning to city councils in their efforts to win licenses.

One group of investors has written its own ordinance to allow legalized gambling in Anaheim and has asked the City Council to rubber-stamp it. A host of civic, religious and business groups is opposing the proposal, and city officials should follow suit.

The clubs promise millions of dollars a year in revenue to cash-starved cities, but the problems they bring are likely to cost more. After leaving clubs in Los Angeles County, several winners were robbed and one was killed. Last year San Diego’s police chief and the county district attorney there issued separate reports linking card clubs to criminal activity like loan-sharking and money-laundering. They also warned of corruption associated with the clubs, a pronouncement the City Council in Bell seems to be ignoring despite that city’s own experience.

Bell’s casino closed more than a year ago after years of scandal and financial problems. A persuasive voice in favor of establishing legalized gambling in the city was Pete Werrlein Jr., a City Council member from 1964 to 1980 who was general manager of the casino from 1981 to 1984. But in 1985 Werrlein pleaded guilty to two felonies stemming from his hidden casino ownership while a councilman. Now, incredibly, the City Council wants to let his former club reopen with new owners--and the city has hired none other than Werrlein to monitor its operations.

This defies common sense. Corruption problems must be heeded, as must warnings from police departments about the civic evils that legalized gambling can bring. Voters across Southern California have shown that they got the message; city councils should get it, too.