Unfair Park from p6 “There is a spectrum,” he explained. “A lot of what we focus on, primarily, are loca- tions that have ties to violent crime. Some of these illegal gambling locations, you have shootings.“When you’re kind of in the illegal side of gambling, you’ve got people with firearms, you’ve got alcohol being con- sumed, you’ve got narcotics being con- sumed. Somebody doesn’t get paid out, you know, sometimes it turns violent.” Players contend legal card rooms are the answer to crime in the underground scene. More people are looking to open up new le- gal rooms or expand existing ones. Still, not everyone is happy about that. City Council member Cara Mendelsohn has said she thinks the city code should be changed to require specific use permits or consider nearby residential zoning. This way, poker rooms won’t end up where they’re not wanted. Under one interpretation of the law, Texans are allowed to operate a poker game in private establishments as long as the hosts don’t take a cut of the action and everyone has an equal chance of winning. Some thought the law left room for legal business ventures in the poker world, and they set up shop across Texas, including in Dallas. They operate the rooms as private clubs, they don’t take a rake, and everyone has an equal chance, giving clubs a defense against prosecution for illegal gambling. In games like blackjack, craps or roulette, the house has the advantage, which makes those games illegal. City Council member Cara Mendelsohn, who represents District 12, has said she doesn’t recognize any “loophole.” Gambling is illegal in Texas and poker players are plac- ing bets, so whether that’s happening in a private club, and whether there is a rake, are moot points to Mendelsohn. If people want to gamble legally in Texas, she said, they should head to Austin and the law changed. Some Dallas residents have also fought the expansion and opening of more poker houses. Several showed up to a City Council meeting in August to speak out against a group called Champions that wanted to open a poker house in the footprint of an old Three Forks restaurant location in North Dallas. Deb Borrell lives on Cape Correll Drive and is the secretary for the homeowners as- sociation for Bent Tree North. She’s lived in the neighborhood for three years and has worked in the area since the 1980s. She’s in real estate and says a poker room will lower nearby property values. “I don’t know too many people who would want to live in a residential neighborhood adjacent and at the main entrance near a poker room,” she said. There was also a robbery at the Veterans Underground Poker Tournament at Trinity Mills Road. “This is less than one quarter mile from 88 the proposed location,” she said. “Even though they are claiming this is an upscale facility, poker is poker, and poker is illegal. It is inappropriate, and it is a liability next to a neighborhood with 630 family homes, Mike Brooks churches, schools and playgrounds.” Jeremy Camp, the president of the board of directors of the Homeowners Association for Bent Tree North, said, “I’ve seen hun- dreds of residents attend town halls to ada- mantly and uniformly voice their opposition, over 1,000 signing a petition in just a matter of days, more than 100 people showing up for a peaceful protest.” He said he received hundreds of emails from members of their HOA opposed to the establishment. “Based on all that feedback, I will tell you that our residents and residents of many of our surrounding neighborhoods don’t understand how this could happen and feel that the city has let them down,” he said. “They’ve been told there’s nothing the city can really do.” But he says the city could enact regula- tions of where these businesses can operate or enforce criminal laws “that clearly bar the operation of these gambling places.” “I’m deeply concerned about the safety of my family and our community, not just be- cause of the serious risk of violent crime around the premises, such as the horrific armed robberies and assaults that have been reported happening at other poker clubs, but also because the parking lot of this poker club exits directly into my neighborhood street,” Camp said. “Today it’s my neighbor- hood, but tomorrow it could be any residen- tial area in the city which is at risk of the same thing happening to them.” The residents and City Council members were successful in shutting down one poker house completely and stalled the opening of the Champions club by getting its permits denied in August. “After a very thorough process to evalu- ate the legality of the business model pro- posed, the City Attorney’s office has deemed it illegal as outlined by state law,” Men- delsohn said in a Facebook post about Champions. “The city will stand up to any legal challenges to this determination.” Champions sued, and now the city isn’t talking because of pending litigation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s of- fice didn’t respond to the Observer’s re- quests for comment on the legality of poker rooms in Texas. He declined to provide a le- gal opinion on membership poker clubs in 2018, citing pending litigation. “Our agency has a longstanding policy of not issuing an opinion on an issue we know to be the subject of pending litigation,” a spokesperson for Paxton’s office told KHOU at the time. His position hasn’t changed since then. Past Texas attorney generals have taken a more openly hostile stance against poker and gambling. Former Texas Attorney Gen- eral Will Wilson told voters he would close down casinos in the state. He and the Texas Rangers spent several years in the mid-’50s trying to shut down a famous club in Galves- ton called the Balinese Room. A backroom at the club had the latest gambling equipment and would bring in hot shot entertainers like Frank Sinatra. The Texas Rangers tried to catch gam- blers in the act at the Balinese Room with no luck in the beginning. The club was lo- cated at the end of a pier, and the house band knew to start playing “The Eyes of Texas” any time they saw the Rangers ap- proaching. People in the club would hear the song and know they had moments to hide the gambling paraphernalia before the Rangers came busting in. In the end, the Rangers had to execute an undercover operation to get the club closed down in 1957. In more recent years, poker rooms have been able to open in Texas cities without much trouble from the law. Whenever there were busts, they would usually just result in misdemeanors. That began to change in 2019. Zack Fer- titta, a Houston attorney who represented one of the city’s biggest poker clubs, ex- plained this transition in an article for texas- bar.com. Clubs in Houston started to become more prominent, Fertitta wrote. In just a two-year period, one of the city’s clubs had made over $6 million. In May 2019, two of the city’s largest poker clubs were raided. Eventually, Williams quit his day job to pursue playing poker full-time. In a press release about the raids, the Har- ris County district attorney’s office said poker rooms are illegal in Texas. He also said his office would seek harsher charges against people who set up these establishments. “We are changing the paradigm regard- ing illegal gambling by moving up the crimi- nal chain and pursuing felony money laundering and engaging in organized crimi- nal crime charges against owners and opera- tors,” he said. “Players are not being targeted.” Felony charges opened the door for law enforcement to seize the clubs’ cash, bank accounts and real estate. Other poker clubs in the area faced lawsuits from the county claiming they were nuisances because they hosted illegal activity. But just a few months after the two Houston clubs were raided, all the charges were dropped and the county’s nuisance lawsuits were dismissed. Why? There was a conflict of interest in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Several of its members frequented the clubs. Fertitta represented Prime Social and got all the criminal charges against the club dis- missed. But the two clubs that were raided aren’t in the clear yet. Their cases were referred to the FBI for consideration. Fertitta said he suspects Texas prosecu- tors and law enforcement, “tempted by lu- crative seizure opportunities,” will continue to go after these clubs. It’s not an unfounded fear. In fact, it’s happening now in Dallas. In December, the owners of Texas Card House got a notice from the city saying their permit was revoked for “keeping a gambling place,” according to CBSDFW. That month, Mendelsohn said in a social media post that it wasn’t just Texas Card House under the gun. “The city of Dallas’ building official has revoked the certificate of occupancy for all poker rooms,” Mendelsohn said. “All can be appealed. The issue is poker rooms are ille- MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 MARCH 17–23, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
