LODI - The Lodi City Council on Wednesday night directed City Attorney Steve Schwabauer to seek the state Attorney General's Office pre-approval for a potential expansion of the Wine Country Card Room & Restaurant.
The once-controversial cardroom has become a strong revenue stream for the city since it opened in 2007, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually via a 9 percent tax outlined in the city's gaming ordinance.
For the cardroom to expand, the city needs to revise that ordinance, requiring a stamp of approval both from city officials and the Attorney General's Office gaming department, Schwabauer said.
The cardroom wants to both expand and pay the city a smaller percentage of its gross revenue so it can spend on marketing campaigns to promote new services - such as check-cashing abilities and 24-hour tournaments. Operators and city officials hope those promotions will generate enough new business to make up for the lower tax.
"I see this as allowing (the cardroom) to do business and make money. ... I see this as a win-win," Mayor Joanne Mounce said.
Cardroom operators requested are requesting the following changes.
» Increase the number of poker tables from 11 to 13.
» Eliminate restrictions on how many people can play at each table.
» Allow the cardroom to operate for 24 hours in a single day with an average of 140 hours each week per state law. This would allow for the operation of 24-hour or longer tournaments to be played.
» Allow the casino to cash personal checks and extend lines of credit to card players.
» To decrease the city's cardroom tax from a flat 9 percent to $20,000 for the first $240,000 in gross revenue the cardroom earns in a year and 4.5 percent of each dollar earned for the duration of the 12-month period.
Co-owner Steve Snider told the council that the need to provide credit and check cashing is not - as some have suggested - to allow for people to cash their paycheck to gamble.
"It's for customers that bring in a lot of cash and for those who win big and don't want to leave the building with large amounts of cash," he said. "They could come in with checks or credit."
The Wine Country Card Room was born in 2007 as the popularity of the card game Texas Hold 'em Poker took off nationally.
At that time, Lodi's lone cardroom owner, Jack Morgan, took on six new partners and proposed moving his tiny Axtion Jaxon Cardroom from Sacramento Street downtown to the larger 1800 S. Cherokee Lane restaurant venue.
The Planning Commission approved the proposal despite a Christian group's protests contending that gambling is unsavory and leads to higher crime rates in areas where they exist.
Those voices of opposition were not present Wednesday night. Councilman Alan Nakanishi said the cardroom has not attracted crime to the city.
Wine Country opened offering space for up to 80 card players at nine tables. It was open from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily. The cardroom agreed to pay the city a 9 percent tax, which operators estimated would reach $200,000 annually at the time.
The cardroom's success has far eclipsed those predictions, however, in part after the City Council approved an expansion allowing two additional card tables and an extension of its hours of operation by four hours.
If the ordinance is amended, the city projects its 2011 intake to decrease from $358,000 to roughly $299,000.
Contact reporter Keith Reid at (209) 546-8257 or kreid@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/lodiblog.