Loss of Funds : Bingo Rules May Cut Aid for Disabled

New regulations approved by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday will force a Woodland Hills charitable group--which operates the largest bingo game in the city--to cut back on services to the physically handicapped, a representative said.

“We’re going to have to cut programs,” said Edith Ryan, founder of Identity, a nonprofit corporation that operates an outpatient facility for the physically handicapped. “Anytime you curtail your customers, you curtail your profits.”

But an official of another large San Fernando Valley bingo operation said he welcomes the new regulations.

The City Council unanimously passed the regulations limiting charitable groups that operate bingo games to three games per week, 40 games per night and a maximum of 350 players a session.

Reduce Competition

Council members said the new rules would reduce fierce competition among bingo operators. More bingo proceeds will go to charity if operators do not compete for players by offering larger and larger prizes, they argued.

All licensed bingo operators have until Aug. 1, 1989, to comply with the new regulations, said Robert Burns of the city’s Social Services Department, which monitors bingo. However, new bingo operations must abide by the new regulations immediately, he said.

The council also tentatively approved a regulation Tuesday that would require charitable groups to buy bingo supplies from licensed vendors, Burns said. This rule, Burns said, is expected to come up for final approval next week and could become effective within 30 days.

On Sunday and Monday nights, the bingo games operated by Identity average about 300 players, Ryan said. An average of about 500 people play in the Saturday night games, she said.

Ryan said the new rules allowing only 350 players per session could cost her group as much as $20,000 a month. In addition to reducing the number of people allowed to play at Saturday games, she said, the rules will discourage many from going to the bingo parlor out of fear that it will be full.

Ryan said Identity nets from $40,000 to $50,000 a month from bingo. She said it also contributes bingo proceeds to other charitable organizations.

“If somebody could guarantee me the same amount of money I get for charity from bingo, I would give bingo up today,” Ryan said. “Bingo used to be a means to an end, but now I think it’s the end of a means.”

Ryan said she did not immediately know which services her group would have to cut.

But Dave Myers, director of development for the United Cerebral Palsy-Spastic Children’s Foundation in Van Nuys, said of the change, “We think it’s beneficial.

“A lot of charities have been hurt by the proliferation of bingo games,” said Myers, whose group is among the three largest bingo operators in Los Angeles. “We expect to see more money turned over to charity organizations.”

Myers said his organization nets about $180,000 a year from bingo proceeds.

Burns said bingo games, authorized by the city 10 years ago, have generated about $28 million in the first seven months of 1988 and are expected to gross about $50 million by the end of the year.

But only about 10% of that money will go to charity, he said, with most of it going for prizes.

“We haven’t been doing the kind of job we should be doing in respect to policing” bingo operations, said East San Fernando Valley Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who introduced the new legislation.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” Bernardi said of the new regulations. “It’s going to tighten up some of the abuses. We were turning the city into a Las Vegas-type of casino operation with regard to bingo.”