Commerce Club Casino

When Daniel Negreanu gets a yen for a salad with chickpeas and peppers and hard-boiled eggs, it doesn't matter that it's not on the menu; the kitchen is happy to oblige. And if Jean Gluck wants her New York steak -- 12 ounces, crusted with cracked black pepper and seared in butter -- cut into bite-sized pieces, it will come cut into bite-sized pieces. These folks are not regulars at the Polo Lounge, nor are they aboard the QE2.

Gamblers at the Commerce Casino's high-limit Texas Hold 'Em tables didn't appear to notice as armed sheriff's deputies shuffled past them on their way toward a red-carpeted stairwell. Some deputies were in uniform, guns holstered at their waists or strapped to their thighs. It was 8 a.m.

The city of Commerce--long known as a blue-collar industrial center--seeks to become a regional shopping and entertainment mecca as well with plans for a 40-acre complex along the Santa Ana freeway. The proposed 400,000-square-foot retail and entertainment project would connect the Citadel outlet shopping center on the north with the Commerce Club casino on the south. Projects of similar size and scope usually cost $60 million to $70 million to develop, according to real estate observers.

The Commerce Club, the state's largest poker casino, has agreed to pay an $85,000 fine for secretly funneling campaign contributions to defeat ballot measures that would have allowed rival clubs to open, according to court records released Tuesday. The fines resulted from an investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission of the casino's spending during the 1995 elections, in which at least five Southern California cities considered ballot measures to open new casinos.