No Rest in Colma Casino Bid

Eternal rest grant unto them, oh Lord. And let not the above-ground stud poker action interfere.

Yes, exclaim those alarmed by the prospect, say a special prayer for the repose of the 1.5 million souls who lie buried in Colma, a unique city of cemeteries located a mile south of San Francisco.

Rising above the departed, with graveyards on three sides, is the Lucky Chances “24-hour coffee shop, steak and seafood restaurant with piano bar, lounge and card room.”

Predictably, the bizarre concept--a gambling emporium set among somber gravestones and manicured cemetery greenery--has not met with universal approval.

The Feng shui couldn’t be worse, said a master of the ancient Chinese study of auspicious placement of buildings relative to surroundings.

Plus, over-the-top political skirmishing rages, placing in question whether Lucky Chances will ever be lucky enough to open, even though construction is well underway.

Opponents call the Lucky Chances a desecration and vow to force the casino crowd to back off and get out of Colma.

Casino proponents, meanwhile, denounce a strategy hatched in Sacramento to undo two Colma city elections authorizing gambling amid the graveyards.

Fueled by the controversy, pro- and anti-casino forces among Colma’s living population of some 1,100 hardly speak to each other.

Charges fly that a war between big money from Nevada versus local financial muscle is destroying 100 years of civic harmony. Criminal complaints dusted off from the past circulate, as do mutterings of ballot stuffing and charges of racism.

Four of the five members of the Colma City Council face possible recall from office.

Generating perhaps the most heat is the bill moving through the Legislature that would allow the state to nullify Colma’s approval of the Lucky Chances.

Heading for final resolution in the state Senate next month, the bill (AB 158) by Assemblyman Lou Papan (D-Millbrae) would bar card-room gambling in Colma and force the club’s investors to swallow their losses.

Never in memory has the Legislature reversed a measure passed by local voters, Capitol veterans said.

But Papan argues that Colma residents should not have sole say in bringing casino gambling to town. Loved ones of the dead from throughout California and beyond should have a voice, too, and they would abhor gaming near the graves, he said.

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At a recent Sacramento hearing on Papan’s bill, Sen. Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach) said she wasn’t so sure. “I think my mother would have enjoyed it,” she said, generating laughter in the hearing room.

Foundation work and sub-flooring for the 43-table casino already sprawl over much of the 3.8-acre property.

Across the street, John Kruljac looks down on the construction site from the mausoleum balcony of the Serbian Cemetery that his family owns and vows to see the day when the job is shut down.

“This is a unique place on the planet, and I want to keep it that way,” Kruljac said.

He referred to the 90% of Colma dedicated to cemeteries. Amid rolling hills and cypress pines, some graveyards are landscaped to resemble formal European gardens. Others are graced by vast mausoleums decorated in gleaming marble, stained glass windows and blue-tiled fountains.

Buried there are such luminaries as Wyatt Earp, newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, Progressive era Gov. Hiram Johnson and Tina Turner’s dog.

“The card room was a pill shoved down our throats,” said Kruljac. “There has been civil war ever since.”

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As if to illustrate, Kruljac, driving a visitor through Colma’s four short residential streets recently, spotted the mayor’s husband--casino backer and City Councilman Dennis Fisicaro--standing on a sidewalk.

Kruljac waved. Fisicaro, who is among those targeted in a recall election in September, responded with a cold stare.

Other players in the Colma casino drama:

* Fisicaro’s wife, Mayor Helen Fisicaro, also a Lucky Chances proponent, also a recall target. The city approved Lucky Chances only after residents voted approval twice and thorough background checks were conducted, she said. In fact, the owners of only five of Colma’s 17 cemeteries oppose the project, she said.

* Colma landowner Tom Atwood--painted as the chief villain by Lucky Chances’ supporters. Atwood made a pitch to erect a card room on a golf course he owns. The city turned him down, he said, in favor of “outlandish predictions” of revenue flowing to the town from Lucky Chances.

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Allowing those city referendums to stand, he said, would be like leaving the fate of the Lincoln Memorial entirely up to residents of Washington, D.C. He is suing the city, has hired a battery of Sacramento lobbyists and has a leading role in the recall effort.

Atwood’s adversaries have revived memories of a 2-year-old incident in which a well-connected lawyer, former GOP state party Chairman Michael B. Montgomery, acting for Atwood, allegedly was recorded offering a bribe to a legislator in exchange for help in killing off the Lucky Chances project. Montgomery was indicted on six criminal counts, but all charges were later dropped. Atwood said neither he nor a partner at the time authorized any such offer.

* Reno casino owner George Karadanis--the flip side of Atwood--is painted as the chief villain by anti-casino forces. Builder and owner of Lucky Chances, Karadanis said his investment is legal and welcomed by a majority of Colma’s voters. If forced out, he stands to lose almost half of the overall $20-million investment. “I don’t see how the state of California can [stop the project] and say that’s just tough. I thought there was justice in this country,” he said. He has hired his own lineup of lobbyists to fight the Papan bill.

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Powerful Nevada interests like Karadanis portend a future for Colma in which the gamblers one day could “boot out the cemeteries entirely,” Atwood said.

* Rene Medina of San Bruno and Richard Kuramoto of Carmichael, the legal, California-based operators of the Lucky Chances if and when it opens. “If my name was Rene Smith,” said majority operating partner Medina, who is a gambling-tour bus operator and a Filipino American, “none of this would be happening.”

Opponents have circulated documents showing that Medina was charged in 1988 with trafficking in fighting cocks--popular in the Philippines but illegal in the United States. Medina pointed out that he was never convicted. He also denies charges of sexual harassment brought in a pending lawsuit by a female employee.

Also taken as an ethnic slur by Medina and others: The suggestion made in local news reports that Filipinos turned up in suspiciously unusual numbers in Colma’s May 1996 card club election. Casino proponents won by 33 votes out of 365 cast. Filipino numbers went up, Medina said, because he encouraged resident Filipino Americans to vote who had not bothered to vote in other elections.

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And, yes, he said it’s true that he took prospective voters on trips in his buses to show them the benefits of card club action in other Northern California communities. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “Some liked it, some didn’t.”

* Gary Cohn, executive director of Emanuel Congregation of San Francisco and manager of the Jewish cemetery properties that sold land to Karadanis for Lucky Chances. The decision was made with a clear conscience, Cohn said. “A card room is a legitimate business in California, as are the auto dealerships that are also adjacent to cemeteries in Colma.” In any case, said Cohn, the land sold to Karadanis for $2.4 million was never intended as burial property.

* David Cho of Los Angeles, a Feng shui master and a director of the American Feng Shui Institute. “So much negative energy from all those dead people” near the casino, he said. Cho, who has done Feng shui analysis for other casinos, said the prospects for the Lucky Chances--both owners and players--is the worst he has heard of. Many Asians believe in Feng shui, the ancient practice of situating buildings and furnishings according to forces in nature that determine “health, wealth and relationships,” he said.

“That place in Colma could turn out to be a white elephant for someone,” he said.