Card Clubs

The director of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Ventura County announced Friday that the group has dropped plans to seek a permit to operate a card club in northeast Oxnard, saying that months of negotiations had detracted from the charity's work. "The feeling at this time is that it is in our agency's best interest to remove ourselves from the complexities surrounding the card club issue so that we can devote our full attention to servicing our clients," said executive director Lynne West.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday described the ballot arguments for and against Cypress' card club initiative as misleading and ordered that the inaccuracies be removed. "There are some real problems with the language on both sides," Judge Richard J. Beacom told attorneys who had gathered in his Santa Ana courtroom. "I see some significant errors and misstatements."

Help for financially strapped Hawaiian Gardens could come from the wallets of gamblers playing poker and bingo in a card casino under a plan approved by City Council members this week as a remedy for the gaping $1.5-million hole in the city's budget. The council approved a special election Nov. 21 to let residents decide whether to legalize card clubs. One of the things for which the city is seeking financial support is help to pay for its new 20-member Police Department.

A Calabasas businessman wants to open a large card club in downtown Moorpark that he says could generate more than $2 million in revenue for city coffers. Some city leaders on Tuesday, however, said a card club would attract "the wrong element." If eventually approved, the club would be by far the largest card club in Ventura County. The City Council is scheduled to review the proposal in January. Everett Crawford, a retired real estate investor from Calabasas who made the proposal in a Nov.

A proposal unveiled Wednesday by a casino operator to open a card club here will be studied by officials as a way to raised money for the cash-strapped city. The City Council, directing the city manager to investigate the idea, cited the estimated $2.5-million deficit this year. But council members also expressed reservations. "I doubt that the city of Garden Grove will ever have a card parlor," Councilman Bruce A. Broadwater said.

The Oxnard Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday urged the City Council to delay a final decision on a card club until the economic benefits of casino proposals have been fully evaluated. The directors stopped short, however, of endorsing construction of a large casino, saying they knew too little about such clubs to make an informed decision, chamber President John Waters said. "We're not saying we support a card club," Waters said. "We're saying we need more information. . . .

Opponents of the proposed Cypress Card Club officially kicked off their campaign last week with T-shirts and a trip to the City Council meeting. Cypress Citizens Against Card Club, or CCACC, has also formally organized by filing with the state under the Fair Political Campaign Practices Act. The action allows the organization to solicit campaign funds and have their position included in ballot arguments for the June 8 election.

Folding a card club proposal before it even got into the planning process, the Moorpark City Council has decided to reject a Calabasas businessman's idea to open a 30-table club in the city. Mayor Paul Lawrason summed up the opinion of the council when he said the club might work well somewhere else, but was a bad idea for Moorpark. "This is just not the kind of business we want in downtown Moorpark," he said.

Bellflower voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether they will allow a card club in their city, amid political conflict-of-interest charges, rumors of a tax increase and a blizzard of campaign flyers. The initiative has been the subject of the ugliest campaign in recent memory, and with a Bell Gardens casino footing part of the bill to squash it, it has caught voters' attention. Already more absentee ballots have been cast than in any other city election.

A man and woman returning home from a card club were robbed of their $10,000 in winnings as they returned home late Tuesday, Sheriff's Department officials said. The assailants probably followed the couple home from a Bell Gardens card club, Lt. Jay Mendez said. The men confronted Bao Le, 58, and Cathy Luu, 35, in their driveway in the 14900 block of Munro Street.