Since their establishment in La Center in 1985, cardrooms have been the lifeblood of this north Clark County town, providing tax money for sewers and charitable donations for worthy causes.
“They’ve grown to be part of the community,” says La Center Mayor Jim Irish.
But, if patrons like T.J. Gant of Vancouver are correct, construction of a giant, high-powered casino on Cowlitz Indian tribal land just a short distance away would spell doom for the four cardrooms in this bedroom community’s miniature downtown.
“If a major place comes in, these places are going down,” said Gant, a Clark College student who visited the New Phoenix last Wednesday. “A major casino is better than these rinky-dink places.”
The future of the four cardrooms — the Chips, the Palace, the Last Frontier and the New Phoenix — troubles La Center’s leaders as they consider the prospect of a Cowlitz tribal casino at the nearby junction of Northwest La Center Road and Interstate 5. A survey of cardroom patrons last week, while highly unscientific, would suggest that a new, flashy competitor for gambling dollars would easily draw card players who now frequent the cardrooms.
“They would kill this place,” said Jim Shanks, a 64-year-old retired Oregon truck driver who dropped in at the New Phoenix while visiting family in the area. “With the slot machines, they could just kiss this place goodbye. People like slots.”
Mike Amato, chief executive of a Portland blueprint firm, said the cardrooms have their advantages: staff are friendly and it’s easy to get to know the regular patrons. Still, “as someone from Portland, having another casino to go to wouldn’t offend me,” said Amato, who is 65.
Irish, the mayor, believes the cardrooms aren’t necessarily doomed. “Card players are a special breed of people,” he said. “They don’t like glitz and glitter.”
Still, the city has reason to worry. La Center expects to receive just under $3 million in tax revenue from the cardrooms this year, representing three-quarters of the city’s general fund budget. Even though the revenue is down from $3.5 million in 2007, the city naturally hopes to protect the businesses that pay its civic bills.
Irish said tribal leaders have shown an interest in working with the city and cardroom owners, and have raised the possibility of running a shuttle between a new casino and the cardrooms. A more ambitious plan would be to relocate the cardrooms closer to the casino, if the city succeeds in annexing land from its present city limits to the Interstate 5 interchange, Irish noted. He compared the concept to development of rival stores side by side, creating a mutually beneficial critical mass of shoppers.
John Bockmier, a public relations consultant for owners of all four La Center cardrooms, agreed that construction of a casino would cast doubt on the future of the cardrooms. He said the cardroom owners aren’t against a Cowlitz casino, but they do oppose the casino’s planned location at the I-5-La Center interchange.
“It they put up a Las Vegas facility, it’s going to have an obvious impact on (the cardrooms’) revenue stream,” Bockmier said. The casino’s advantages would extend beyond its ability to offer slots and roulettes. “There is a set of rules and regulations a cardroom has that a casino does not,” he said.
In La Center’s tiny commercial district, business owners said it’s just too early to know how the Cowlitz casino will change the city.
Jose Guitron, owner of La Casa Tapatia restaurants in La Center and Woodland, said business has been good in the La Center location in the six months since it opened. Since most of the customers so far are local residents, Guitron said he didn’t know what would happen if the cardrooms went away.
“I don’t know how many come from casinos,” he said. “They’ve got really good prices for meals.”
At Sadie and Josie’s Bakery, one of the family owners filed the question away for another day. “We just have to see what happens,” said Sharon Martin, part of the three-generation family business that only recently moved from mobile sales into the new bakery.
A bakery customer, lifelong La Center resident Ken Viles, 78, said the Cowlitz casino will hurt the cardrooms. But, he said, it’s been tough for restaurants to survive in La Center against the low-cost food offerings of the cardrooms. Before Sadie and Josie’s opened, he said, one restaurant after another failed in that location.
Viles said the cardrooms were a boon to the city when they first arrived. At the time, he said, “La Center was going down the tubes.”
But looking on the bright side, “at least it would stop the traffic from Portland,” he said.
