IRVINE : Smoke-Free Law May Reduce Bingo Income

The twice-weekly bingo games sponsored by the Irvine Unified School District that raise nearly $50,000 a year for music programs, band uniforms and instruments are in trouble.

A federal law requiring all public schools to be smoke-free by the end of the year has bingo operators warning that attendance will plummet if bingo players are not allowed to smoke.

“It’s going to be very difficult for them to continue the operation if they don’t allow smoking,” school district Supt. David E. Brown said.

Proposals from the U.S. Department of Education’s Goals 2000 program, signed into law on March 31 by President Clinton, require all public schools, public libraries and public health facilities to be smoke-free as of Dec. 26. Public school teachers will have to leave campus if they want to smoke, according to Brown.

Parents from music booster groups at the district’s three high schools help run the bingo games, which meet Wednesday and Saturday nights at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School. At Irvine High School alone, district officials estimate between $15,000 and $30,000 is raised each year from bingo for underfunded instrumental music programs.

“This money is what makes the difference in having special programs like marching band and jazz band at Irvine High,” said school board President Michael B. Regele, a bingo volunteer whose son plays trombone in the high school marching band.

School board members are expected to meet with parents from high school music booster clubs to seek a way to keep the income flowing from the year-round bingo games. But Regele says he does not see any possibility in obtaining an exemption from the smoke-free law to allow smoking at local schools. “It’s a federal law,” he said. “We have no control over that.”

Irvine Unified fine arts coordinator Stan Steele said the only solution may be to move the bingo games away from local schools. But the cost of leasing another location could seriously erode bingo profits.

The number of bingo players has declined in recent years, but school district officials say the majority of them smoke.

The loss of bingo money, officials say, would still have a dramatic effect on high school instrumental music programs.

“The instruments are all getting older, and there isn’t any other source of money to buy new instruments,” Steele said. “We’d be concerned about a significant cutback in the instrumental music programs without this money.”