POMONA : Legal Wrangling Seems in the Cards in Wake of Casino Vote

As Pomona digs itself out from under the electoral rubble of Tuesday’s extremely acrimonious and closely contested election, two things seem clear: Voters are in great conflict about whether to allow gambling in their city, and Pomona has not seen the last of the card club issue.

With an undisclosed number of provisional ballots outstanding, it appeared Wednesday morning that by a slim measure, Pomona voters were rejecting Measure A, which would have allowed two card clubs in their city. But the vote was neck-and-neck on Measure B, which would have banned all card clubs in Pomona in the future.

Pomona officials, who supported the concept of card clubs and even gave preliminary approval to one club called CHAMPS, expressed disappointment with the vote but said they would spend the next week examining their legal options to see if the council could move forward with a new card club proposal regardless of the election outcome.

“Now it’s going to come back to the City Council and then go to the courts,” said Pomona Mayor Eddie Cortez.

Cortez said this might be possible in part because of the wording of Measure A, which asked voters to approve or reject two card clubs in Pomona. That leaves open the question of permitting one card club to operate in Pomona, Cortez said.

The city had been banking on up to $10 million in estimated yearly revenues from card clubs to give the financially strapped city an economic boost. Pomona suffers from high unemployment, crime and an aging infrastructure. In recent years, several of its largest employers have left the city, taking thousands of jobs with them.

“It brings everybody back to square one,” a frustrated Cortez said of Tuesday’s vote. “This was not a mandate. It should have been a decisive vote but the people voted no against banning card clubs and they also voted no against having card clubs.”

Pomona’s city attorney and city manager were not available for comment Wednesday.

Anti-card club forces, by contrast, said they believed the final vote would vindicate their position.

“I’m pretty confident the vote will stay the way it is, although I would also like to see Measure B pass,” said Dale Hansen, a Pomona resident active in The Committee Against Card Club Casinos. “But at this point we can say that Pomona voters have rejected card clubs.”

Hansen conceded, however, that the card club controversy is still alive.

“We haven’t seen the end of it. There will be a lot of litigation,” Hansen predicted.

Pro-card club forces in Pomona agreed.

“We plan to pursue this with vigor,” said Norma Randall, co-chair of Citizens for Pomona Revitalization, which supported Measure A.

“We feel very optimistic and we still have the support of the council and a tremendous community support, which was obvious because both initiatives failed,” Randall said.

“We always knew it would be a close race and considering the vicious campaign we had to defend ourselves against, the allegations of racism and crime, the funding from the Bicycle Club and other outside interests, we think we did extremely well.”

Randall referred to an inflammatory mailer that was sent to Pomona voters earlier this month by a Los Angeles-based organization that receives financial support largely from existing card clubs.

The flyer, which charged that Leo Chu, the Chinese-American owner of CHAMPS, would invite Asian organized crime into Pomona, was denounced as racist by city officials and by Chu himself.

According to most recent financial campaign disclosure statements, Chu raised $85,950 for the card club campaign while anti-card club groups had raised $11,111.

On Wednesday, Cortez chided Pomona’s voters for the low turnout--although the 25.5% turnout was actually much higher than that of the March 7 council election, when only 15.5% of eligible voters cast ballots.