Tribes face 60 day deadline on gambling compacts

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 10:14 a.m.

Tribes that fail to accept the agreement or begin negotiating similar pacts could face raids on their casinos by authorities.

While a handful of tribes are praising the agreement, others are resentful and predict that the issue will lead to divisiveness among California's 100 tribes.

The Pala Band of Mission Indians and the state last Friday announced they had concluded 17 months of negotiations with a precedent-setting agreement. The agreement governs the number and types of gambling devices that are permitted in tribal casinos, and includes side agreements on issues such as labor laws and the environment.

Some 40 tribes that operate casinos in California were thus handed what could be viewed either as an olive branch or a hammer.

State and federal law enforcement agencies are allowing 60 days for tribes to either agree to the terms of the so-called Pala Compact or to begin negotiations on compacts "substantially identical" to the agreement.

Tribes offering games the state considers illegal have a total of six months to transition to the lottery-style gambling machines that are permitted under the Pala agreement.

The machines, to be designed and manufactured under contract with the Pala Band, are still in the prototype phase. But they should be available in time to make the transition, Pala representatives said.

The hammer behind the offer is the threat of raids on casinos run by tribes which haven't come to terms with the state.

Attorney General Dan Lungren, long an antagonist of gambling tribes, on Monday praised the Pala agreement as an "outstanding model."

In a conciliatory move toward wealthy tribes with illegal Nevada-style casinos, he pledged to "work cooperatively" with gambling tribes - as long as they abide by the Pala terms.

Once tribes have entered into compacts with the state, Lungren's office will have the authority to license casino employees and provide law enforcement oversight of certain gambling operations.

"We want this to work," Lungren said. "This has been a carefully orchestrated settlement ... with an eye toward a transition period."

Representatives of eight tribes joined Lungren at a news conference Monday outlining the agreement and endorsed its terms.

The wealthiest gambling tribes, however, have complained that they were left out of the Pala negotiations and resent being forced to accept the compact's terms.

"They're asking us to play a game that has not even been devised yet," said Ken Ramirez, vice chairman of the San Manuel Tribe in San Bernardino County. "How can that concept be bought into?"

San Manuel operates 1,000 video gambling machines that would be outlawed under terms of the Pala compact.

The Pala negotiations, Ramirez said, were "not a democratic process - not when you have one tribe doing all the negotiation and in turn setting the tone for all the other tribes in California."

Ramirez said the 39 largest gaming tribes in California, members of the California Nevada Indian Gaming Association, still haven't thoroughly reviewed the Pala compact or determined their next step.

The association has submitted for the November ballot an initiative that would legalize the video slot machines and other Nevada-style games currently in operation at their casinos.