Foes of the Hollywood Casino Jamul, having lost every contest to stop it from opening in Jamul, San Diego County, now want to keep the tribe from being issued a liquor license from the state.
Initially groups opposed to the casino, such as the Jamul Action Committee (JAC), had hoped to hang their hats on serious traffic problems that they predicted the casino would cause. That didn’t materialize.
At a hearing on the liquor license attended by hundreds of protesters, Casino General Manager Richard St. Jean told the panel: “There have been no incidents associated with the casino relative to accidents, DUI or anything else.”
JAC previously went to court to try to stop the casino from being built. They challenged the tribe’s status as a legal tribe. Although they lost the first round, they have appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Currently they want the license held up until the state’s transportation department, Caltrans makes safety enhancements.
One of the protesters told World Casino News: “We’d like to see the roads mitigated, which was promised to us from Caltrans and the tribe – an agreement in 2009 that they would not open until the roads were mitigated – that’s not happened.”
The tribe argues that it has agreed to pay $90 million over the next two decades to public safety and $23 million for transportation improvements.
Meanwhile it continues to operate under a temporary liquor permit which expires in March.
