New Game in Town? : Card Club Operator Raises Stakes With Mailer Opposing Construction of New Casino Nearby

The millionaire operator of the Southeast’s largest card casino has jumped into a heated, high-stakes battle over plans to build a multimillion-dollar card club on the city’s eastern border.

George G. Hardie, the general manager of the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, this week denounced the plan to build a $60-million entertainment complex on Firestone Boulevard in South Gate, just one mile from the Bicycle Club.

Hardie angered South Gate city officials by attacking the plan in a flyer mailed to residents and paid for by “The Committee for Good Government (The Bicycle Club).”

Mayor Gregory Slaughter said the council will ask several federal agencies to investigate Hardie’s involvement in the South Gate ballot measure. The federal government became part-owner of the Bicycle Club earlier this year after several of its investors forfeited their shares following criminal and civil racketeering trials.

“The Bicycle Club paid for those mailers, so the federal government paid for part of those mailers. That means we, the taxpayers, paid for part of those mailers,” said Dennis Desnoo, campaign manager representing Greater Los Angeles Development Company, the proposed builders of the casino complex. “The federal government has become involved in a local election. Excuse me, but someone just broke the law, big time.”

Hardie responded: “Are you kidding me? That’s a joke. This is a normal course of business. The government is a minority limited partner. They have no say on the operation of the business. We are a private business. If we choose to get involved, then we will do it.”

South Gate voters will go to the polls on Oct. 22 to decide whether the city should approve construction of a 90-table card casino, 125-room hotel, restaurants and a health spa on Firestone Boulevard just east of the Long Beach Freeway.

City Council members backing Measure A say the cash-strapped city could gain up to $25 million in sales and bed tax during the first five years of operation. Critics of the measure say a casino will breed corruption and crime.

In urging residents to vote against the measure, Hardie said the plans for the entertainment complex are incomplete and were negotiated with little public participation. South Gate city officials have wrongly seized on the card casino as a cure for the city’s financial woes, he said.

With four clubs within a five-mile radius, Hardie contends, the area cannot support another one. Greater Los Angeles Development Company officials say their marketing studies show the area would support another club.

Hardie also echoed growing concerns among casino opponents about the financial and business credentials of Greater Los Angeles Development Company, which has built several hotels in Orange and Los Angeles counties but has never been involved in a casino project.

Already Hardie’s committee has begun papering South Gate’s main boulevards with small yellow and black signs that state: “Who’s pulling the strings?” and “Where’s the $$$?”

“I just think that these questions need to be brought out,” Hardie said. “Unfortunately, the card industry has had its share of scandals. Hopefully, there won’t be any more.”

Hardie’s entry into the fight was greeted with open hostility by Measure A opponents, who view him as an outsider. The No on Measure A Committee, a coalition of civic leaders, church groups and parents who condemn gambling as morally wrong, quickly issued a statement disavowing any association with the casino operator.

“It is clear that the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens wants a monopoly on professional gambling, and that’s fine with us,” committee chairman Nate Benson said in the statement. “They are being motivated by greed and not by what is best for the city of South Gate.”

Though rebuffed by both critics and supporters of the measure, Hardie’s participation in the campaign is certain to up the ante in what is rapidly becoming a fractious and costly battle.

According to campaign disclosure statements, from July 1 to Sept. 9 supporters of the measure outspent opponents nearly 2 to 1. The Committee to Protect South Gate and Promote Prosperity in the Greater L.A. Area, supported mainly by the Greater L.A. Development Group, raised and spent about $47,000. The No on Measure A Committee raised and spent about $25,000 during the same period. All of the contributions to No on Measure A came from International Window Corp., a manufacturing firm located on the site where the card casino would be built.

The committees for and against the gambling measure recently tangled in court over the sample ballot argument opposing the casino measure. The No on Measure A Committee filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court complaining that it was not given time to write a ballot argument and saying that the argument, written by Councilman Robert Philipp, was an attempt to fool voters.

Philipp, a strong supporter of the casino measure, wrote in part, “If you don’t believe the city needs . . . $50 million to reconstruct and repair city streets, $3 million to add 20 new police officers, $1 million to effectively control graffiti . . . then vote against this measure.”

Last week, a Superior Court judge ruled that Philipp’s statement was “false and misleading” and ordered it deleted from the ballot pamphlet. The judge also ruled, however, that it was too late for the opponents of the measure to submit their own argument, so sample ballots sent out to voters contain only the argument in favor of the casino measure.