JOSHUA TREE — If they can’t build a casino in Twentynine Palms, the Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians will build in Joshua Tree.
That was the message from tribal representatives who shared their plans for a 20,000-square-foot casino in Joshua Tree at a public meeting Saturday, Oct. 15 in the community center.
The tribe’s reservation in Twentynine Palms, where members started planning a casino in the early 2000s, is home to desert tortoises and abuts Joshua Tree National Park. The idea of a casino built there met with resistance from government agencies like the National Park Service, as well as local groups.
The tribe hasn’t identified any desert tortoises or endangered flora on its Joshua Tree property, Steve Gralla, tribal chief financial officer, said.
“If you were going to build, which choice would you make between these two properties?” Gralla asked the audience at Saturday’s meeting.
The Joshua Tree site is on the north side of Twentynine Palms Highway, just east of Desert View Homes’ metal dinosaurs.

‘Would you like a “No casino” sticker?’
People entering the community center Saturday for a meeting about a proposed casino here were greeted with offers of stickers with a red line through the word “casino.” Others got fluorescent signs reading, “No casino in Joshua Tree.”
The audience of about 270 was peppered with the signs and stickers, and 36 of the 39 people who spoke were against the casino.
Darrell Mike, chairman of the Twentynine Palms tribe, addressed the opposition.
“I see a lot of no stickers, and that’s OK. It’s going to take me some time to make you my friend,” Mike said with a smile. “I’m going to work on it.”
Speakers opposed the casino on several fronts, from warning it would encourage crime and addiction to predicting it would destroy Joshua Tree’s peace and bohemian way of life.
“A casino in Joshua Tree? How did that idea even get off the ground?” Curt Duffy of Yucca Valley said in disbelief.
“From a planning perspective, this is a terrible location for a casino,” Bonnie Kopp, a retired city planner now living in Joshua Tree, declared. The area has no infrastructure or traffic control and is in a low-density residential zone, she said.
“No sovereign land — no casino in Joshua Tree,” Kopp concluded.
Kopp was referring to one of the hurdles the tribe must clear to build its casino in Joshua Tree. While the land in Twentynine Palms where the Nüwü Casino was to be built is on an Indian reservation, the property in Joshua Tree is not. Hosting gambling on it right now would be illegal. The tribe will have to go through a government process to have their Joshua Tree acreage declared sovereign Indian land.
The two speakers who supported the casino hoped it would bring some money into a depressed area.
Almost all the children at Joshua Tree Elementary School are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, teacher Sherry Killam said. “Many, many, many of them live in cars,” she added.
Killam suggested the casino could benefit local families financially.
“It will create jobs, it will create taxes,” Larry Hughes of Joshua Tree said. “All I ask you to do is look at the big picture.”
Both their statements were met with hisses and shouts from the audience.