After voting in January to allow a second cardroom, Marina City Council reverses with a 5-0 vote.

The prospect of a second cardroom, which allows legalized gambling in the form of games like blackjack and poker, has become a lightning rod of controversy in Marina.

On Jan. 18, the City Council considered an ordinance to amend the city code to allow for a second cardroom in the city. The meeting stretched past 1am, with the vast majority of public speakers in opposition. Despite that, a motion to make the amendments passed 3-2 (Cristina Medina Dirksen and Brian McCarthy dissented).

But it’s not a done deal yet: Passing ordinances requires two votes by the council at two separate meetings, and the council considered the issue once again on Feb. 8.

Mayor Bruce Delgado, speaking by phone on Feb. 7 while driving down from Sacramento, where he visited various cardrooms, says he’s heard the outsized public opposition over the past several weeks and that he has kept an open mind.

“We don’t have a call to action very often on issues, and we need to respect that,” he says. “My personal opinion is that it’s not going to survive tomorrow night.”

Marina, a former military town, had two cardrooms when it incorporated in 1975, and in 1996, passed an ordinance limiting the total cardrooms to two. One of those, Mortimer’s, shuttered in 2015, and only Marina Club remains.

Also in 1996, the state legislature enacted a cardroom moratorium, prohibiting local jurisdictions from allowing new or expanded gambling operations. But that moratorium expired at the end of 2022, as a bill to extend it did not pass last year.

Enter Parkwest Casinos, which applied for ordinance amendments that would allow the company to open a cardroom in the city. Founded by John Park in 1997, Parkwest operates five upscale cardrooms in the state, mostly around Sacramento and Stockon.

Delgado sees the opposition to the cardroom in two camps: those opposed to any gambling, and those concerned about its impact on Marina Club.

Marina Club owner Frank Calamia says that since the closure of Mortimer’s, he’s expanded his staff from 20 to 41, and if a “big, fancy ass cardroom” is allowed to go in, “I’ll lose half my employees right off the bat. I am very, very concerned about the viability of my company.”

The tax revenue his cardroom generates isn’t nothing, but it’s also a rounding error in the city’s roughly $35 million budget. In 2022, Marina Club generated $211,466 in tax revenue to the city. (By comparison, in 2015, when both rooms were open, they generated $139,586 combined.)

But Delgado says an upscale cardroom could also attract visitors to a downtown in dire need of revitalization. He adds, however, that need shouldn’t necessarily trump public opinion.

Among residents opposed is Jeff Markham, who created a website – nocardroom.org – imploring residents to make their voices heard on Feb. 7. Those voices were heard loud and clear, and a motion to not approve the ordinance passed 5-0. It’s toast.