Casinos creeping south

Since Indian casinos were approved by voters in 1998, rural tribes have made repeated efforts to push gambling closer to the potential customers in big Bay Area cities.

A Healdsburg tribe plugged in 1,600 electronic bingo machines last year at its San Pablo casino.

One North Coast tribe failed in a bid to place a casino next to Oakland International Airport, and yet another is pursuing a proposal to build in Richmond.

Now a proposal is on the table for a casino south of Petaluma - at the same spot where a casino was proposed a dozen years ago - leapfrogging past a proposal for Rohnert Park.

With crowded tour buses rolling into Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino county casinos, tribes scouting for Bay Area locations see 7 million residents and none of the competition that already exists near home.

But some call the practice "reservation shopping."

"It's what gives a bad name to Indian gaming," said Howard Dickstein, a lawyer who represents tribal interests. "It undermines the public support so essential to the long-term survival of this industry."

The 931-member Dry Creek Rancheria band of Pomo Indians already operates the River Rock Casino near Geyserville. Its state gaming compact allows it to open a second casino.

In the past two months the tribe has bought 265 acres between Highway 101 and the Petaluma River about a mile south of Petaluma, according to county records.

The land is valued at $6.1 million on the property tax rolls.

A spokesman for the tribe, who wouldn't give his name for publication, said acquiring the land makes economic sense.

"I think any business likes being close to its customers," he said. "The tribe seeks no acrimony with any other tribe."

Though the business advantages may be obvious, experts say it won't be easy for the Dry Creek tribe to obtain the necessary approvals to build a casino near Petaluma. There are a number of hurdles to clear:

The tribe needs approval from the Secretary of the Interior for the land to go into federal trust, a process that includes justifying gaming on new land.

It also needs concurrence from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last year proclaimed he would consider such proposals only if a local advisory vote were successful and the benefit was more than economic.

It has to undergo federal environmental review.

"Proposals are a dime a dozen and investors are easily fooled," Dickstein said. "They would have to show it's a necessity for them to get this land for gaming. I don't think it is, given they already have a successful casino."

Karen Passalacqua, past president of a Geyserville group opposed to River Rock casino, said she thinks the Dry Creek tribe could benefit from the controversy alone.

If the backlash is strong enough, Congress could bar tribes from obtaining new land for gambling. That could eliminate the Graton Rancheria's Rohnert Park proposal and leave River Rock as the North Bay casino closest to San Francisco.

"They would still have a monopoly up here," Passalacqua said.

Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, is proposing an amendment to the state Constitution to require county or city government approval and voter referendums for casinos on land acquired by tribes after January 2000.

"The problem is we're seeing an explosion of reservation shopping (as tribes are) trying to get closer to urban areas," he said. "We have to make sure elected officials and voters have the opportunity to vote "no" or to deny an attempt to reservation shop."

On the federal level, a proposed amendment to a bill by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, would prohibit tribes from building off-reservation casinos if they aren't already far along in the process.

In a letter dated Friday, Rep. Lynn Woolsey urged acting Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett to reject the Dry Creek tribe's application.

Approval "would give the green light to this most egregious type of reservation shopping, and encourage other tribes to do the same," said Woolsey, D-Petaluma.

For its part, the tribe said it may not build a casino at all. Tribal officials say they are applying for trust status to build a casino, hotel or resort.

If the tribe seeks to build a hotel or resort, the process would be different and potentially not as difficult. But it would still need federal approval, Dickstein said.

The governor's office said it hadn't received a Petaluma proposal or taken a position.

Despite his objection to off-reservation casinos, Schwarzenegger did support a move by the Big Lagoon Rancheria in Humboldt County to locate a casino in Barstow, 700 miles away. In that case, he said Big Lagoon's land is environmentally sensitive and shouldn't be developed.

In the lone advisory vote to date, 84 percent of voters in Amador County rejected new casino development. Other votes are pending in Glenn and Colusa counties.

Despite having congressional authorization to take land into trust, the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria has yet to obtain final state and federal approval for a casino. Its environmental impact report is due later this year.

The Lytton Indians from Healdsburg also obtained congressional approval before taking over a San Pablo cardroom, but have been caught up in an ongoing battle over plans to convert it to a casino.

The bingo machines installed last year resemble slot machines, but operate differently. As a result, they don't fall into the same regulatory classification, which allowed the tribe to move ahead while the dispute over other gambling continues.

The Lyttons don't operate any other gambling facilities.

"There's no precedent in California, none whatsoever, for a tribe with no act of Congress to take land outside their historic area for a second casino," Dickstein said. "In my view it will never happen in the foreseeable future. The politics and law are going in the opposite direction."

But the Dry Creek Pomos are claiming the Petaluma land, and all land in Sonoma County, as ancestral right.

"The way the Pomo lived, they roamed throughout the whole area," the tribal spokesman said. "There weren't specific rancherias, bridges or county lines or freeways. That's not how areas were determined historically. This has been historic Pomo land for 10,000 years."

That view is contested by the Coast Miwoks, who claim the same land. Dickstein doubts the Dry Creek claim will stand.

"Lake County tribes have been arguing with equal futility that the Bay Area is their historic territory, because they went to trade or traveled through there," Dickstein said.