Palm Springs, California City Seeking OK for Gambling

Casino developers in both Palm Springs and California City are placing their bets on the initiative process this year, hoping to ask voters throughout the state to approve casino-style gambling in their respective cities.

Two proposed initiatives have been submitted to the state attorney general’s office, where the measures are awaiting a review before supporters begin gathering the nearly 700,000 signatures needed to qualify the measures for the statewide ballot next year.

The Palm Springs initiative, tentatively dubbed the California Gaming Control Act, would establish gambling at three resorts in the Palm Springs area. A similar measure failed to qualify for the ballot in 1996. The current measure is sponsored by the California Gaming Control Committee, a group of local developers in the Palm Springs area.

In 1995, voters in Palm Springs approved a local initiative to establish Nevada-style gambling in three yet-to-be built casinos. But the initiative can only take effect if the state’s constitutional ban on such gaming is repealed by a majority of voters statewide, which both proposed initiatives are seeking to do.

Proponents of the California City measure, meanwhile, want their town to become the California equivalent of Atlantic City.

John Brown, the Oxnard attorney who authored the California City measure, stands to profit if the measure is approved. Brown owns 25% of California City Gaming Corp., which holds exclusive rights to 10 gaming licenses in the Kern County town.

Opposition is already lining up against the proposals. Opponents include Californians Against Unlimited Gambling, an association of four of the state’s largest law-enforcement groups. The associations have already come out strongly against the Palm Springs measure.

Among the concerns: the initiatives would overrule and weaken recently passed state legislation to regulate the gaming industry. The measure, SB 8, is awaiting approval from Gov. Pete Wilson, who is expected to sign it into law.

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, one of the more vocal opponents of gambling expansion and co-sponsor of SB 8, has yet to take an official stand on either of the measures. But a Lungren spokesman says the attorney general has opposed similar measures in the past.

HOT BILLS

Check-Cashing Crackdown

* Bottom Line: Will impose fines up to $5,000 and six months in county jail for owners of check-cashing businesses who operate without state permits. The measure puts penalties into existing state law requiring check-cashing businesses to register with the state.

* Chances: The bill passed the Assembly in May, the Senate in August and was signed in August by the governor.

* Next Step: Takes effect Jan. 1, 1998.

* Details: AB 711 author Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton) can be reached at (916) 445-7448.

Viatical Insurance Reform

* Bottom Line: Makes it easier for the terminally ill with group life insurance policies to sell their life insurance policies to any third party of their choice for a portion of the face value. The dying can then use the money and the viatical broker cashes in the policy when the policyholder dies.

* Chances: The bill cleared the Assembly in June and passed the Senate in August before earning the governor’s signature this week.

* Next Step: Takes effect Jan. 1, 1998.

* Details: AB 489 author Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) can be reached at (916) 445-7874 or by e-mail at [email protected]