VALLEY CENTER
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The San Pasqual Indian band announced yesterday it is planning to add about 400 bingo-style slot machines to its Valley View Casino in advance of a hotel it is building.
The tribe said it plans to build a 7,000-square-foot addition for nonsmoking gambling areas and some support services in an area between its 110,000-square-foot casino and 1,200-space parking garage.
The tribe is planning to break ground in October on a 161-room, 12-story hotel and other amenities. The casino expansion would open in December.
Joe Navarro, who heads the tribe's casino development arm, said planners realized they needed to do the casino expansion now, because waiting would make it more disruptive.
The addition would house bingo-based machines – which are slower and less profitable – because the tribe is in the middle of a lawsuit with the state over the number of Nevada-style slot machines it can operate.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal recently said it would decide a similar case brought by the Rincon Indian band and another by the Colusa band near Sacramento before ruling on San Pasqual's lawsuit.
Lawyers for the tribes say state officials have misinterpreted 1999 gambling compact provisions that limit the number of slot machines available statewide.
Under the state's interpretation, Valley View is limited to 1,572 Nevada-style slots, but not in the number of machines it can offer that pay out based on electronic bingo games. It has 137 such games now.
It could increase the number of Las Vegas-style slots if the appeals court rules in its favor, or upon passage of a bill proposed by state Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, which would give tribes with 1999 compacts the ability to operate 2,000 slots each.
Details of the expansion plans and impacts off the reservation are in a report at the Valley Center Library, 29200 Cole Grade Road. A public hearing on the plans is scheduled for 6 p.m. June 17 at the casino, 16300 Nyemii Pass Road, Valley Center.
Onell Soto: (619) 593-4958; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
