Gambling Ship to Sail With Slot Access Barred

A California Indian tribe and its Florida partner said Friday that they plan to begin operating a San Diego-based gambling cruise ship later this month, despite failing to win Gov. Gray Davis’ approval of special legislation the partnership said it needed to legally launch its floating casino.

Davis earlier this week refused to sign legislation by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) sponsored by the Viejas Band of Mission Indians, raising the possibility that the ship would be unable to operate.

However, on Friday the Viejas’ partner, Commodore Holdings Ltd. of Hollywood, Fla., said the Enchanted Sun casino ship will comply with the general state prohibition against operating slot machines and will make its first voyage between San Diego and Rosarito Beach, Mexico, 18 miles away, on April 14. The floating casino will represent the first foray by a California Indian tribe into gambling off reservations.

“If it’s within the existing law, it’s within the existing law,” Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said Friday.

The cruise ship is not covered by Proposition 1A, the measure approved by voters last month granting tribes monopoly rights to operate Nevada-style casinos, including slot machines, on reservations. Rather, Viejas and Commodore must comply with other state penal code provisions that prohibit the use of slots in California.

Although gambling is legal in international waters, a 1950s state law aimed at limiting floating casinos says operators of such ships must keep their slot machines in locked compartments that are not accessible to passengers while the vessels are in state waters.

Burton’s legislation would have allowed the tribe to render the machines inoperable by, for example, unplugging them. The legislation won quick approval, but Davis refused to sign it.

Davis says he supports only a modest expansion of gambling in California, even though he negotiated the deal that resulted in Proposition 1A. Since voters approved the measure, the governor has been stung by reports that tribes are quickly enlarging their casinos and building new ones on reservations, and that non-Indian gambling corporations have formed partnerships with some tribes.

Commodore, which operates other gambling cruise ships, describes the Enchanted Sun as having a 7,000-square foot casino covering two decks and containing 370 slot machines, 13 card tables, roulette and craps tables. The Viejas Band contended that it needed the legislation because the ship’s layout would have precluded it from locking the machines.

However, on Friday, Laura Bennett, spokeswoman for the cruise ship operator, said: “There will be something that will prevent ingress and egress that will absolutely comply with the law.”

An aide to state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who is responsible for enforcing laws involving the ship, said Lockyer was withholding judgment. Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin said the Viejas-Commodore partnership “will be able to [comply with the law] if they put their machines in a locked container or room, inaccessible to any patrons while in state waters.”