Larry Flynt has purchased California’s oldest card club, the venerable Normandie Casino, whose sale was forced after the former owner’s license revoked by the California Gambling Control Commission. The purchase was for an undisclosed amount. The commission approved the purchase.
The former owners, the Miller family, faced money-laundering charges. They reportedly helped high rollers avoid reporting large amounts of cash changing hands. The Millers had owned the card club since 1948.
Flynt is a well-known adult entertainment mogul as well as the owner of the Hustler Casino, the largest card room in the Gardena area, which he opened in 2000.
The Normandie will be rechristened Larry Flynt’s Lucky Lady Casino.
Already Flynt is raising hackles of the Gardena City Council, which doesn’t like the cartoon of a scantily clad woman that Flynt wants to put on the marquee of the card club.
They told him they wanted the sign to be more “tasteful” since it is one of the first things that drivers see when they drive into Gardena from the east. Another councilmember said the cartoon was demeaning to women.
The city attorney agrees that the city can’t force Flynt to change the content of his sign, but doesn’t have another way to force compliance: the financial terms under which the card club will be allowed to operate.
Flynt isn’t happy with how much the city wants to collect from him every month. The city wants a combined $800,000 a month from both casinos.
The city of Gardena gets about 20 percent of its operating revenue from the two card clubs. Because revenues vary, the city would like a guaranteed revenue stream of $800,000 a month.
Flynt won’t agree to that, but he will promise to invest $17 million in the new casino, which could increase revenues to the city in the form of greater assessed valuation and to the casino. He is also expecting to buy the property for $60 million by 2020. Currently he leases.
