YORBA LINDA : Threat Faced by School Bingo Games

An effort to annex Anaheim’s Esperanza High School to Yorba Linda could jeopardize the school’s bingo operation, which brings in about $3,300 a month for athletic teams and other school groups.

But even if the annexation effort fails, the school’s bingo games, where smoking is allowed, could be threatened by a state mandate that schools receiving money from the Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education program eliminate smoking on school campuses by July, 1996.

If the annexation effort is successful, the school would have to comply with Yorba Linda zoning and land-use regulations. One of those regulations, the city’s smoking ordinance, prohibits smoking in “every publicly or privately owned theater, auditorium, or other enclosed facility which is open to the public for . . . any other performance or event.”

City Atty. Leonard Hampel said the school’s gymnasium, where the bingo games are held, would be considered a publicly owned auditorium, and the bingo games would be considered an event.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Board of Education could vote to exempt the school from the ordinance. However, to do so, it would need the support of four of the five board members. Two trustees, Craig Olson and Karin Freeman, have said they would probably not vote for an exemption.

Olson, who was not on the school board when bingo was approved in August, 1991, said he wants all schools to be smoke-free.

“We are teaching students to be health-conscious,” Olson said. “It seems somewhat hypocritical to say smoking is bad for you except on” bingo nights.

Freeman, who voted to approve bingo, said that if the high school were annexed into Yorba Linda, the school district should abide by that city’s regulations.

“I don’t know why the school district would look at itself differently,” Freeman said.

Esperanza Principal George Allen said bingo, which is held every Monday night, is the only event where smoking is allowed on campus. The games are restricted to those 18 years and older. Students help in setting up before bingo and cleaning up after, but they are not permitted to be in the gymnasium while bingo games are played, Allen said.

“Bingo has never made it without smoking,” Allen said. “It seems to be accepted elsewhere.”