Card-Club Backers Again Gamble on Oxnard : Gaming: Promoters must overcome any doubts by the D. A., whose concerns about casino-related crime helped kill past efforts.

Reviving efforts to bring big-time gambling to Ventura County, an owner of two Nevada casinos and operators of a glitzy Hollywood Park card club have met with Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury to gain his support--or at least his neutrality.

Richard P. Crane Jr., a former organized-crime prosecutor who owns 5% of two Las Vegas casinos, said Friday that his next step is to present a card-club proposal to the Oxnard City Council.

But first, Crane said he wanted to make his case with Bradbury, whose investigation of card-club promoters and concerns about casino-related crime helped kill similar projects in Oxnard two years ago.

“I talked to him to see if there was any way we could overcome his concerns,” Crane said of his March 22 meeting with Bradbury and other local law enforcement officials. “They just heard me out. They gave us absolutely no commitment.”

The district attorney was unavailable for comment Friday.

Pitching the deal to Bradbury along with Crane were former Los Angeles Rams General Manager Donald Klosterman and Edward LeBaron, a former professional football quarterback. Klosterman and LeBaron are the operators of the Hollywood Park Race Track casino, the state’s third-largest.

“We just wanted to let him know who we are,” Klosterman said of the hourlong session. “It was just a feel-and-touch meeting, I guess you’d call it. And it was very cordial.”

Crane, LeBaron and Klosterman all would have ownership interests in the card club, Crane said.

Although his plans are preliminary, Crane said he envisions a large card club similar to the one he proposed in 1993 before community opposition and a Bradbury inquiry prompted the Oxnard council to reject all proposals.

Crane’s new casino would be built just north of the Price Club along the Ventura Freeway. It would be about the size of the 52,000-square-foot club proposed two years ago.

Such a casino would lure 1,000 customers a day, produce at least 300 jobs and provide $500,000 to $1.2 million in gambling taxes annually for the city, promoters estimated.

The Oxnard City Council, however, may not be eager to jump into another card-club fight.

The council unanimously killed three casino proposals in June, 1993, after an emotional four-hour hearing during which about 300 people--the largest council audience in years--packed City Hall.

As that campaign peaked, about 2,000 casino opponents sent letters and petitions to the council. Their response outnumbered supporters’ correspondence 20 to 1.

Opponents characterized gambling as a vice that would undercut the moral integrity of the community while sullying Oxnard’s image. Supporters, including the Chamber of Commerce, said a casino would be a boon to business and a tax windfall.

At the same hearing, Bradbury denounced card clubs as corruptors of local government and magnets for crime. And he announced his own investigation of casino promoters’ laundering of campaign contributions to the City Council.

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Several council members, who had given serious consideration to a card club for economic reasons, abandoned the issue. And most of them said Friday that they are not eager to revisit it.

“It was one of those issues that I’m not sure there was any kind of a winning solution,” Councilman Tom Holden said. “There was just too much concern. . . . I still think it’s probably an issue that is better off dealt with at the state level.”

Mayor Manuel Lopez, a card-club opponent from the start, said he would no more vote for a casino today than he would have two years ago.

“I thought that was a dead issue,” he said. “It’s like the dragon with many heads. You tear off one and others come out.

“I know they’re going to be peddling the story that it’s a cash cow,” Lopez added. “But it’s not all clean and there’s a lot of negatives, like law enforcement costs.”

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Newly elected Councilman Dean Maulhardt said he has no moral objections to a card club.

“The main thing is to give everybody a fair hearing and see if they can justify it,” he said. “That includes justifying it to the residents of Oxnard too. This is the type of subject where I think the community needs to be brought in on the discussion.”

Councilman Bedford Pinkard could not be reached for comment. In 1993, Pinkard said he had no philosophical objection to a casino, but wanted the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.

Councilman Andres Herrera, who leaned toward a club in 1993, said the casino was attractive then because the city had cut millions of dollars to balance its budget and desperately needed more revenue. Now sales tax from new shopping centers has helped, he said.

“We are not in the position we were last time,” Herrera said. “We would be more cautious now.”

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Bradbury’s past opposition to casino gambling is another reason for Herrera’s reluctance to quickly consider a casino anew.

“I don’t need any more controversy at this time, unless they can definitely show us that this is viable,” Herrera said.

So when Crane telephoned him in February to talk about a card club, Herrera said, the first thing he did was refer the lawyer to the district attorney.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you go talk to the D. A., and once that meeting is over hopefully we’ll have some report back from the D. A. about you,’ ” Herrera said.

Herrera said he called Bradbury to recommend the meeting.

“I said, ‘Mike, these guys are calling me, and I’m not prepared to talk with them. Last time you came in like a knight in shining armor and blew everything away, so I want you to talk with them first.’ ”

Crane said he called Bradbury for an appointment himself. Now, after chats with both Herrera and Bradbury, Crane said he intends to move forward.

“I’m going to pursue it,” he said. “The next logical step is to talk to the City Council and to talk to Mr. Bradbury again.”

In 1993, Crane was generally considered the card-club applicant with the best chance of success.

He came to Oxnard with a resume as a former federal prosecutor who rooted out criminals in organized gambling, then became a successful casino owner himself.

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Crane is now a high-priced corporate lawyer in Santa Monica and president of the Bel Air Country Club, where he golfs with his prospective partners--LeBaron and Klosterman--in Oxnard.

The two former National Football League executives have run the 1,500-employee, Las Vegas-style Hollywood Park Casino since it opened last summer.

Klosterman, who was the Rams’ general manager in the 1970s, and LeBaron, a former Washington Redskins quarterback and an Atlanta Falcons executive, pay the corporation that owns Hollywood Park Race Track $3 million a month for the casino lease.

That publicly traded company cannot run the casino, because under state law gambling clubs cannot be owned by unknown stockholders.

Crane believes his partners’ experience and reputations will help his chances this time around.

“I think we can demonstrate that through the addition of Don and Eddie and the reputation of Hollywood Park,” he said, “that we can run an operation that makes you proud, rather than embarrasses you.”

In 1993, Crane was lured into the Oxnard casino deal by local developers Michael Wooten and Frank Marasco, who controlled the rights to a prime casino site and had worked with local officials for years.

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As it turned out, Wooten and Marasco were convicted of misdemeanor money laundering for funneling about $1,000 to council members and an assemblyman.

Crane said Friday that he was not even aware of Wooten and Marasco’s problems, because the council had killed the deal long before they were charged with a crime.

Nor does Crane expect local officials to hold him responsible for his former partners’ legal problems.

“I think that they know . . . that this was totally an arms-length thing with Wooten and Marasco,” Crane said. “They had the inside track. It was a relationship of accommodation.”

Holden, nonetheless, said Crane’s past partners could raise questions.

“I think it’s obviously something to be concerned about,” he said. “‘It’s not something to ignore.”

Crane faces another hurdle that may be more difficult to scale.

As part owner of two Las Vegas casinos, he is prohibited from holding a California gaming license, because casino games in Nevada are not legal in this state.

Crane is counting on the state Legislature passing a bill this year that would allow out-of-state license holders to be licensed in California.

He is ready to move forward anyway--if officials tell him they want him here.

“I’m not interested in going in there if there’s opposition from the community leaders,” he said. “I don’t want to offend anyone. There are other places to go.’