Sheriff Blasts Indian Casino Proposed for Oxnard

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks on Tuesday condemned a plan to bring Las Vegas-style gambling to Oxnard, saying a Nevada corporation’s proposal to operate a hotel-casino for a landless Indian tribe would create crime, break up families and change the city’s character.

The sheriff recommended that at a May 8 hearing, the Oxnard City Council reject a plan by Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming Corp. for a casino and 250-room hotel on 25 acres spanning the struggling Oxnard Factory Outlets and an adjacent field along the Ventura Freeway.

Brooks asked the council to act “in favor of business that will enhance, not erode, the quality of life in Ventura County. . . . Although there would likely be some financial benefit to the city of Oxnard, the more subtle and insidious negative influence on the quality of life in general weighs heavily against [the casino].”

He cited one university study that found the costs of gambling to a community outweighed the benefits 3-to-1. He cited another that found strong links between casinos and crime.

And he quoted a National Academy of Science study that found that “pathological gamblers engage in destructive behaviors: they commit crimes, they run up large debts, they damage relationships with family and friends, and they kill themselves.”

Mary Rose, spokeswoman for Paragon and the 163-member Greenville Rancheria of Maidu Indians in Northern California, said Brooks’ facts don’t hold up when California’s experience with Indian gaming is considered.

“The sheriff is entitled to his opinion,” she said. “But I think the facts will be there to support a different decision.”

She cited two studies paid for by Indian tribes that found substantial benefits from tribal gaming. A study of tribal casinos in six states, including the glitzy Cabazon tribe casino in Riverside County, found that police agencies have concluded that casino jobs help reduce crime.

“We can cite studies back and forth,” Rose said. “But tribal gaming increases employment and would bring $8 million a year in revenue to the city of Oxnard.”

Nearly 700 full-time casino jobs would be created in Oxnard, even before a hotel is constructed, she said.

Oxnard officials are set to release their own study of the casino’s potential effects Thursday, including an analysis of crime in communities near several California reservations with casinos.

“We did take a look at many different areas, including public safety in cities with similar situations,” spokeswoman Jeanette Villanueva-Walker said.

Two of five Oxnard council members--John Zaragosa and Mayor Manuel Lopez--strongly objected to the city even considering the casino proposal.

But Councilmen Bedford Pinkard, Dean Maulhardt and Tom Holden backed a study.

Holden and Pinkard said Tuesday that they won’t make a decision until they hear a full report May 8.

“I am not going to weigh this proposal in the press,” Holden said.

Pinkard said he visits Palm Springs regularly and always makes a stop at the Cabazon casino about 20 miles east of town.

“I have an open mind,” he said. “And my mind will stay open until someone brings me a complete report. The bottom line is that we should listen to the people, and if that means putting something on the ballot, so be it.”

Depending on how the hearing develops, Pinkard said, he may ask the council to place the casino proposal on the fall ballot.

Paragon Gaming, which was rebuffed by Ventura County in an earlier attempt to build an Indian casino at Channel Islands Harbor, now proposes a freeway-front casino that would be opened in two phases.

It predicts that the 21,600-square-foot first phase would open six months after the project is approved. The gambling operation would include 349 slot machines, 50 tables and a 15-seat snack bar. After two years, a 50,500-square-foot expansion would add 349 slot machines, 100 gambling tables, a restaurant, office building and storage area.

Like the Channel Islands proposal, the Oxnard plan is an outgrowth of Proposition 1A, a ballot measure that amended the state Constitution to allow Indian tribes to operate slot machines and blackjack tables at casinos. A handful of proposals have surfaced across the state to build casinos in urban areas.

Normally, the governor would need to sign off on an Indian casino that would expand a tribe’s reservation, but because the Maidu tribe is landless, the governor has no direct veto power.

Still, any Nevada-style house would go to Gov. Gray Davis because he needs to approve the required state-tribe compact before a casino can open. And Davis, who helped craft last year’s Indian gaming proposition, is not a big supporter of legalized gambling, especially in urban areas, a spokeswoman has said.

The U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs would also have to approve the plan.