It should not seem odd for a major urban area in San Francisco to have a casino. In its heyday as a freewheeling city, full of miners with money to spend, San Francisco was also known as the Barbary Coast for its similarity to the North African piratical region. The population of the village of Yerba Buena, renamed San Francisco just before the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, grew from around 500 to 25,000 in one year.

After the fourth great fire had destroyed San Francisco, the ‘Alta California’ published a lamentation on 21 September 1851 for the demise of the old City Hotel opened in 1846 on the corner of Kearny and Clay Streets: “When the mines were first discovered, and San Francisco was literally overflowing with gold, it was the great gaming headquarters. Thousands and thousands of dollars were there staked on the turn of a single card, and scenes such as never were before, and never again will be witnessed, were exhibited in that old building.”

Last summer an agreement reached by Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians was redrafted after a hostile reaction from lawmakers. The original agreement would have allowed the tribe to operate 5,000 slot machines in the present San Pablo card room. Subsequently the number of machines was cut to 2,500, and the tribe agreed to give 25% of its profits to the state and local governments, estimated at $155 million a year. The Senate Governmental Organization Committee held a first hearing on the compact last Wednesday.

An act of Congress gave the opportunity to the Lytton Band, the federal law forcing the Governor to permit gambling in an off-reservation area. It is unlikely that any other tribe could get approval for a casino in the area; Congress made the Lytton Band a ‘clear and indisputable exception.’ A proposed casino near the Oakland International Airport had been rejected earlier this week by Oakland City Council. Two other tribes are seeking to put casinos in Contra Costa County in northeast San Francisco.

Horse racing and card room operators are fighting the San Pablo project as they are concerned for their own businesses, but an economic survey commissioned by the tribe says that the casino would take in the yearly $350 million spent at present in Nevada by Bay Area residents. The proposed urban casino would also create 6,600 jobs. The Lytton agreement would provide legal protection for those making complaints against the casino, which would otherwise be immune because of tribal sovereignty.

San Pablo is one of San Francisco’s poorest communities, having one of the lowest per capita incomes at less than half the national average. 60-70% of the Lytton Band is unemployed and the chairman of the tribe, Margie Mejia, told the lawmakers that the compact represents their ‘path from poverty to self-reliance’.

A few of the old ghosts wandering round San Francisco might soon feel quite at home in San Pablo.
(E-01.14.05)

© Copyright 2005 CasinoCompendium



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