PALM SPRINGS — After decades as a desert hideaway for such celebrities as Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope, Palm Springs in the 1980s became a hot spot for mobs of college students on spring break and winter tourists seeking golf, sunshine and clean air.
By the early 1990s, the city was losing ground. Vacancy rates at its hotels rose to 50%, big investors were putting their money on neighboring towns -- Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells and La Quinta -- and most people renting cars at Palm Springs International Airport were driving them out of town.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday November 11, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Palm Springs -- The last name of a Palm Springs real estate agent was spelled incorrectly in an article in Saturday's California section. His name is Andy Linsky, not Linksi.
Now, like some other once-posh resorts with waning glamour, Palm Springs has decided to bet heavily on the slots. Civic boosters hope a bright, new casino that opened Thursday in the heart of downtown Palm Springs -- along with a new and aggressively pro-business mayor and City Council majority elected Tuesday -- will restore the city's reputation.
"WHY VEGAS?" asks an advertisement by the Palm Springs Casino Assn., which boasts of the area's 6,649 slot machines, 163 table games and "millions of dollars in cash prizes and merchandise."
Not everyone shares the thrill.
"I don't particularly like it," said former Mayor Frank Bogert. "It changes the whole picture for this town."
But even he concedes the decision to hitch the city's future to casinos has gone too far to reverse. "There's nothing we can do about it," Bogert said. "Gambling is here. The town has changed. We better make the most of it."
Along with the emphasis on gambling comes a new power structure for this town of 46,000 that annually attracts about 3 million visitors.
Newly elected mayor Ron Oden is Palm Springs' first openly gay mayor, and he will be joined by a gay majority on the council, reflecting the influx of gay and lesbian home buyers who flocked to the city during the 1990s, making its mid-century architecture and downtown village atmosphere suddenly trendy again.
Oden is also black, another notable first for a city with a long history of racial tension. Many black residents, for example, remain bitter over the actions of city officials in the early 1960s who demolished a heavily black neighborhood to make way for downtown development.
The other newly influential players are the leaders of the region's casino-owning Indian tribes. Eventually, according to economic projections, the tribes will employ nearly 10,000 workers in a region that has become a year-round gambling mecca straddling Interstate 10, about 110 miles east of Los Angeles.
