OXNARD : Bingo May Return to Old High School

Bingo games could return to the old Oxnard High School campus on 5th Street as a way to generate much-needed revenue for athletic uniforms, computers and other equipment under a proposal before the Oxnard Union High School District board.

Popular games at the now-deserted campus at 937 W. 5th St. died two years ago after educators instituted a districtwide no-smoking rule, district Director of Personnel Wayne Edmonds said Wednesday.

“Bingo players generally like to smoke,” he said.

New state and federal restrictions imposed in November, 1994, forced district administrators to ban smoking at bingo games. The games had been popular attractions at each of the district’s five high schools until then, generating about $296,000 in profits for the district in 1992-93, Edmonds said.

But when the ban went into effect, bingo players stopped coming, he said. Currently, the only bingo game that still exists is at Camarillo High School, he said.

This September, however, the 5th Street campus was vacated when classes were transferred to the new Oxnard High School on Gonzales Road. That means that tobacco limitations might be relaxed at the old campus, which no longer houses students, Edmonds told the Oxnard high school district board Wednesday.

“There might be a way of all of the schools sharing in the revenues generated by bingo games at the old Oxnard High,” Edmonds said before the meeting.