Odds Lengthen on Sport-Bet Plan : Initiative: Redondo Beach fund-raiser allegedly seeking contributions from bookies provokes criticism of Assemblyman Floyd and a Municipal Court judge. Meanwhile, signature drive lags.

The cards aren’t coming up aces these days for Assemblyman Richard Floyd’s proposal to legalize sports betting.

For one, the statewide initiative is still well short of the 615,958 voter signatures needed to qualify for the June 2 ballot--with less than a month to go before the signatures must be filed.

And to complicate matters, the campaign’s latest fund-raiser has caught the attention of Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who is accusing South Bay Municipal Court Judge Thomas Allen Jr. of helping Floyd solicit contributions from illegal bookmakers.

Reiner, citing local news reports that Floyd (D-Carson) and Allen plugged the proposal before bookies at the Sept. 25 event in Redondo Beach, said he will not permit felony cases to be presented in Allen’s court. Reiner has also brought the matter to the attention of the Commission on Judicial Performance, a state agency that disciplines judges.

“This was a scene right out of ‘Guys and Dolls,’ ” Reiner said, “a room full of convicted bookmakers being hit up for $300 apiece to come to this dinner to fund an initiative to make their activities legal.”

Pointing out that judges are prohibited from taking part in political campaigns, Reiner added: “This is just a heck of a lapse of judgment” by Allen.

Neither Floyd nor Allen returned repeated phone calls to their offices this week.

But Allen apologized in a written statement Wednesday for appearing to endorse the betting initiative while introducing Floyd at the $300-a-plate dinner in Redondo Beach’s Blue Moon Saloon.

“My spontaneous words of introduction were ill-chosen,” Allen said. “They have been reasonably construed as an endorsement of the ballot initiative. As a Municipal Court judge, I am sworn to maintain impartiality, and I must refrain from political endorsements.”

Allen did not say whether bookies attended the fund-raiser. But the organizer of the event, professional gambler William J. Holt of Chatsworth, said Wednesday that in soliciting contributors, he did not target bookies.

Invitations were sent to ticket brokers and a wide range of other businessmen, who were encouraged to invite anyone interested in learning about Floyd’s sports-betting plan, he said.

Holt, who was arrested for illegal bookmaking in 1960, added that it would not surprise him if some bookies had bought tickets.

“If you were an illegal bookmaker and you heard about an initiative that would put you out of business, wouldn’t you spend $300 to see what it’s about?” he said.

Floyd has touted his sports betting proposal as a constructive way to raise up to $100 million a year for senior-citizens’ programs, law enforcement and fire protection. He has argued that the measure would put bookies out of business by bringing sports gambling into the open.

The Daily Breeze, which had a reporter at the fund-raiser, said Floyd attempted to court illegal bookmakers at the event, which was attended by about 60 people, by telling them that they could operate state-licensed betting establishments.

Asked by someone in the audience why the state would license someone with a felony conviction for bookmaking, Floyd reportedly said that most felony bookmaking charges are dropped to misdemeanors.

“A misdemeanor is a parking ticket,” Floyd was quoted as saying in an article that ran Oct. 3. “They don’t count. . . . If you have a felony (conviction), give (the license application) to your son. What the hell. It’s the way you get a liquor license.”

Floyd denied in a subsequent Breeze story that there were bookmakers at the event.

In deciding to bar felony cases from Allen’s court, Reiner cited the first Breeze article, in which Judge Allen reportedly told the audience: “I never looked at (bookmaking) as one of the heinous crimes in the state of California. If you’re going to call it a crime, it’s a white-collar crime.”

Allen also was quoted as saying that Floyd “has put together a program that was so interesting to me when he first talked about it that I couldn’t wait to talk to Bill and Pat about it.”

He was reportedly referring to two men sitting at the head table with him and Floyd--Holt and Pat Klasno, a Torrance resident arrested for illegal bookmaking in 1982.

According to the first article, Allen asserted that legalizing sports betting would free police to fight other crimes, “rather than attempting to bust the bookmakers . . . especially on Super Bowl Sunday, a day Pat (once) called to have me bail him out of jail.”

Reached by telephone, Klasno would not comment on the judge’s remarks. He said only, “Yeah, I don’t want to talk to you,” and hung up.

Reiner said he has filed an affidavit this week that bars Allen from hearing any felony cases because the judge’s remarks at the fund-raiser were inappropriate.

The Code of Judicial Conduct, adopted by the California Judges Assn., says judges “should refrain from political activity inappropriate to their judicial office.” Judges, the code says, should not make speeches or solicit funds for a political organization.

Reiner said affidavits like the one affecting Allen have been filed against other judges because of actions they took while in court. But this is the first time he has acted against a judge for inappropriate behavior while off the bench, Reiner said.

Richard Hecht, the district attorney’s director of branch and area operations, discussed the matter with Allen before the affidavit was filed, Reiner said.

“We wanted to verify that we didn’t have two different versions of what occurred,” Reiner said. “He accepted the accuracy of the entire thing. His only explanation was that he had been told that the people that were at this event were ticket brokers and, frankly, we just didn’t accept that as credible.”

However, in his statement Wednesday, Allen portrayed the dinner as an event sponsored by “entertainment ticket agents in appreciation for (Floyd’s) efforts in defeating legislation recently proposed to severely restrict ticket brokering.”

He said that although he regretted Reiner’s decision to prevent him from hearing felony cases, “that is the prerogative of any prosecutor or defense counsel according to California law, and I cannot fault any attorney for exercising his or her right to do so.”

South Bay Municipal Court Administrator Christopher Crawford said the district attorney’s affidavit has delayed at least three felony cases that were to have been transferred to Allen’s court.

Floyd has campaigned for legal sports betting for several years. But according to sources with knowledge of the current initiative campaign, canvassers have collected 400,000 signatures since petitions began circulating five months ago--about 200,000 short of the total needed by the Nov. 5 filing deadline.

A firm hired to do the canvassing has stopped work temporarily because the campaign does not have the money to pay for its services, the sources say.

Holt said the initiative effort is now relying solely on volunteers and is gathering momentum nonetheless. But this progress, he added, could be jeopardized by the controversy surrounding the Redondo Beach fund-raiser, which he said raised about $20,000.

“Now that all this has happened, I just don’t know,” Holt said.