Assembly votes to ban gambling near necropolis

Monday, June 2, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

By a 43-10 vote Monday, the Assembly sent the Senate a bill by Assemblyman Lou Papan, D-Millbrae, which would overturn two votes by Colma residents allow cardrooms in the tiny "city of cemeteries" south of San Francisco.

"This is the preserve the sanctity of the cemeteries in my district," Papan said, describing them as "fundamentally incompatible" with the drinking and gambling that would take place in card rooms.

Assemblyman Tom Bordonaro, R-Paso Robles, objected during a brief floor debate that the Assembly should "uphold home rule and the will of the people of Colma," who voted in 1993 and again in 1996 to allow a card room to generate extra revenue for their city.

But Assemblyman Larry Bowler, R-Sacramento, replied that some of the backers of those proposals had criminal records and that "there's a shadow of corruption over this whole thing."

Papan's bill doesn't specifically name Colma, but rather would prohibit construction or operation of a gaming club in any city or town designated as a city of repose, necropolis or cemetery city.

That would apply only to Colma, which officially designated itself as a "city of repose" in 1914 after neighboring San Francisco banned public cemeteries because of the value of land there.

Today, Colma is a 2.2-square mile city with a living population of 1,104 and a deceased population of more than 1 million in 17 cemeteries.