L.A. Revokes License of Bingo Parlor Over Allegations It Paid Its Workers

A city charities regulator Friday revoked the license of Los Angeles’ second largest bingo parlor, saying it paid workers in violation of laws aimed at keeping bingo an amateur pastime to raise money for worthy causes.

Robert Burns, general manager of the city Department of Social Service, revoked the license of Identity Inc., a Woodland Hills-based bingo parlor where thousands of players wagered more than $3.3 million in 1991.

The revocation, effective next Friday, climaxes an often bizarre chapter in the history of Identity, a charity for disabled youths headed by the flamboyant and combative Edith Ryan.

Ryan, who has operated the Identity bingo games since 1982, said Friday that she intends to sue in Superior Court to block Burns’ ruling.

Located on De Soto Avenue at Victory Boulevard, Identity operates three games a week for about 300 customers per session. Identity has had gross receipts of more than $28 million since it opened, according to city records. In 1991, 11.8% of its proceeds went to its charity, and the remainder went to pay prizes and overhead.

“Identity will make every effort to remain open,” Ryan vowed Friday. Ryan has denied that she paid her workers, which is forbidden by state law.

“We were exactly at this stage with Dr. Burns in 1984,” Ryan said, recalling a previous attempt by the city to yank Identity’s license, in part on the basis that Ryan was indirectly paying her workers by providing them with free meals and health insurance.

“We sought justice in the courts then and won,” Ryan said. “The judge at that time said Dr. Burns was overly harsh, abusive and arbitrary toward this charity and ordered him not to revoke our license.

“The city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to close us,” Ryan said. “There is no legitimate reason why Dr. Burns has tried to close this charity since 1984.”

Burns’ decision Friday was not a surprise.

He had notified Ryan of his intention to revoke Identity’s license in August, 1990. Two weeks ago, an administrative law judge, after reviewing the transcript of a seven-day hearing into the pay allegations, advised Burns to carry out the revocation.

During the hearings, four former Identity workers testified under oath that Ryan had paid them in cash from the proceeds of her bingo operation, often placing their payments in secret hiding places at the parlor, such as under a first-aid kit in the employee’s locker room.

One of the four women, Sylvia Dean, who sat on Identity’s board of directors, said she received $300 per bingo session.

The city attorney’s office also introduced evidence at the hearings that the relatives of other volunteer workers at Identity got packets of bingo cards--worth up to $65--free, because the checks they wrote to pay for the cards were never cashed. Discarded checks for the bingo cards were recovered from the trash at Identity by investigators.

At the hearings, Ryan counterattacked by saying her accusers were waging a vendetta against her because she had refused to pay them and because she was trying to crack down on their own pilferage of the cash receipts.

The most dramatic testimony came from a former convict who said Dean had offered to pay him $10,000 to frighten Ryan into leaving Los Angeles so Dean could take control of Identity. But the administrative law judge who reviewed the case said the ex-convict’s testimony was not believable.