One of our local Native American HWY 76 casinos in northern San Diego County has made the news again today. This time it's their legal battle they've been waging with the State of California.
My husband and I spend a lot of time at Pauma: an hour -- or maybe even two -- every Tuesday morning depending on whether it is the only casino we're giving our money to that week. We like Pauma because it isn't a fancy resort. The casino is still housed in a tent between the orange groves and the nearby mountains and has no resort amenities such as rooms for overnight stays or spas and swimming pools to distract us from the reason for our visit -- gambling. There's a restaurant that they call a buffet with special prices for seniors, but we never eat there because we've been spoiled by the sumptuous repasts at Valley View and Harrah's and Pala just a few miles away. I should say we don't eat there unless you count the free donuts they feed us if we show up between 8 and 10 Thursday mornings.
Pauma is a friendly casino. The girls at the Player's Club know all of us by name and we know them by name too. They chat and show us pictures of their children and wish us luck when we play. Sometimes they even pat our machines for luck as a superstitious player would do. The gamblers are mostly gray haired geriatrics. The machines are mostly older classics too, but they do have some newer machines. Last time I visited I played the new Leprechaun slots and Lightning Link and the new Wonder 4 with the wheels. Besides our free play, every Tuesday and Wednesday morning they let us trade a $20 bill for $30 of play on our card. Wednesdays and Friday nights there are drawings and game areas like we remember from the old days 10 or so years ago. Every Tuesday they give away pretty nice gifts which we don't stay for because we don't want to play until noon and stand in line. My husband and I are very low rollers, but Joe has had 3 hand pays over the years we have called Pauma home, and I have had my only one on Wicked Winnings II which you all know is my favorite game.
The casino has had some growing pains and some bad publicity over the years too. Go back and read my earlier posts about the women who switched seats on a hand pay and ended up banned for life. But Pauma has learned just as we have, and we don't hear tales like that anymore. I don't think they allow filming - I have never seen anyone recording their slot games to share on YouTube - and none of the videographers I watch have said they filmed in the little casino.
So, why are we writing about Pauma today? It's because they're in the news again - this time over a legal fight with the state of California. I'm not going to rewrite the news article - I'm copying it word for word below because I have nothing new to add. My information comes from Jim Miller who writes for the Sacramento Bee.
"California will pay $36.3 million after losing a years-long legal fight with a Southern California tribe over a casino deal negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that traded permission to add slot machines in return for millions of dollars in payments to the General Fund .
Legislation to appropriate the money emerged earlier this month, and lawmakers are expected to act on Senate Bill 1187 before the Aug. 31 deadline to pass bills. The claim is the costliest for the state since at least 2010, surpassing the $24.1 million the state paid last year after a lawsuit stemming from the state’s aborted sale of state office buildings.
The payment follows a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the case between the state and the Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians, which operates a casino southeast of Temecula in northern San Diego County. The state in June lost its attempt to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Pauma band was among more than 60 California tribes that signed tribal casino compacts in 1999 that for the first time brought Vegas-style gambling to tribal land.
The tribe tried to add machines a few years later but the Schwarzenegger administration said there were no more slot licenses available under the 1999 deal. The tribe made a new deal in 2004 that raised its annual payment to the state from about $315,000 to $7.75 million in exchange for hundreds more slots.
In fact, additional 1999 slot licenses were available. The Pauma band’s lawsuit charged that state officials intentionally misled the tribe to pressure it to agree to pay more.
“Since this misrepresentation induced Pauma to enter into the much more expensive 2004 amendment, the tribe is entitled to rescission of the amendment and restitution for the $36.2 million in overpayments made to the state,” federal appeals court Judge Richard C. Tallman wrote in an October 2015 decision.
Because of another court decision, Gov. Jerry Brown’s casino deals have generally brought less cash to the state than those in the Schwarzenegger era."
Jim Miller: 916-326-5521, @jimmiller2
