Inglewood Municipal Code Art. 7 Card Club License Regulations

It is the declared policy of the City Council that pointholders and key management employees apply for and be issued permits after an individual personal background investigation, and that such parties be controlled so as to better protect the public health, safety, morals, good order and public welfare. Except as provided hereinbelow with respect to a card club license, no applicant, person, licensee, key management employee permittee, or pointholder permittee shall acquire a vested right in any permit issued, registration, finding of suitability, or approval granted by the City Council or any other action of the City Council at any stage of the proceedings. Subject to the powers of the City Council to suspend or revoke a card club license granted hereunder, the holder of any card club license shall have vested rights therein for the term of any such license.

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person or other entity to commence or conduct or purport to commence or conduct, within the City, any business, activity, enterprise, undertaking or place where tables or other items or units of furniture are used directly or indirectly for playing cards or card games and for the use of which a fee, commission or compensation is directly or indirectly charged, accepted or received from players or participants in any such playing of card games until such person or other entity shall have first obtained a card club license and until such licensee has secured a card club operations certificate for the operation of such card games at a specific location, within a specific building under and in compliance with the provisions of this Article.

(b) An applicant for a card club license or various permits is seeking the granting of a privilege. Therefore, the burden of proving qualifications to receive such permit or license is at all times on the applicant. An applicant must accept all risks of adverse public notice, publicity, embarrassment, criticism, financial loss or all other actions and consequences which may result from activities with respect to reviewing, processing, approving or disapproving any application, and, a waiver of any claims for damages against the City or its agent resulting therefrom shall be presumed upon the filing of an application.

(c) An application for a license or permit pursuant to this Article may claim any privilege afforded by the Constitution of the United States in refusing to answer questions by the City Council. However, a claim of privilege with respect to any testimony, evidence or requested information pertaining to an application may constitute sufficient grounds for denial of any such license or permit.

(Ord. 99-28 9-21-99)

There are no mandatory limits on the amount wagered in any permitted game. However, the licensee of a gaming establishment may impose wagering limits on any game at his or her discretion.

(Ord. 07-05, 3-13-07)

(a) Permission Required. It shall be unlawful for any pointholder, having any interest whatever, or at all, in the ownership of a card club, whether legal or equitable, or as trustor or trustee, or of whatever kind or character, to transfer or sell any points and/or interest in a card club to any person who is or by reason of such transaction would become a pointholder without the prior consent and permission of the City Council.

(b) No licensee or pointholder shall knowingly permit any individual, partnership or other entity to make any investment whatever in, or in any manner whatever participate in the profits of any licensed card club, or any portion thereof, except in accordance with these regulations; provided, however, that the purchase or other acquisition of stock in a publicly traded corporation shall not be deemed to be such an investment or participation unless by a pointholder. Except as otherwise provided in Section 8-96.2, a licensee which is a publicly traded corporation shall not have responsibility with respect to any transfers, sales or assignments of shares of its common stock or other securities.

(c) No licensee or pointholder shall knowingly permit any investment in any licensed card club operation or any portion thereof or participation in the profits thereof by any person acting as agent, trustee or in any other representative capacity whatever for or on behalf of another person without first having fully disclosed all facts pertaining to such representation to the City Council. Except as otherwise provided in Section 8-96.2, a licensee which is a publicly traded corporation shall not have responsibility with respect to any transfers, sales or assignments of shares of its common stock or other securities. No person acting in any such representative capacity shall hold or acquire any such interest or participate without first having fully disclosed all facts pertaining to such representation to the City Council and obtained written permission of the City Council to so act.

(d) Transfer of Interest and Escrow Required. No transfer, sale or hypothecation of a point, or new investment in an existing licensed card club shall be permitted until the City Council has received, reviewed and approved an application for transfer of interest, and until each new pointholder has been granted a pointholder's permit authorizing the holding of such interest in a point: provided, however, that no such approval shall be required for sales of stock of a publicly traded corporation other than to a pointholder. No money or other thing of value constituting any part of the consideration for the transfer or acquisition of any interest in a licensed card club operation shall be paid over, received or used prior to complete compliance with all prerequisites set forth in the law and these regulations for the consummation of such transaction. Notwithstanding the foregoing, such funds may be placed in escrow pending completion of the transaction. Any loan, pledge or other transaction in an attempt to evade the requirements of this regulation may be deemed a violation and, as such, would constitute grounds for disapproval of the point transfer.

(e) Assignment. Any party desiring to buy, sell, accept transfer, assign or otherwise hypothecate any interest of a pointholder (other than stock of a publicly traded corporation to a person other than pointholder) in a licensed card club shall file with the City Clerk, on forms approved by the City Attorney and furnished by the City Clerk, a written application for permission to allow transfer of such interest. Each such application shall contain and clearly and truthfully set forth, under oath and/or affirmation, in addition to such other information as the City Clerk and/or the City Council may require, the following:

(1) The date of the application;

(2) The true name of the applicant;

(3) The status of the applicant as being an individual, partnership, corporation or other entity;

(4) The residence and business address of the applicant;

(5) If the applicant is other than an individual, the name, residence and business address of each co-partner, co-partnership, shareholder or other interest holders;

(6) The name of the licensed card club and the names of the existing from which a transfer of interest or points is sought;

(7) The number of points and/or nature of interest sought to be sold, transferred, assigned or otherwise hypothecated;

(8) The source of funds to be used by the applicant in acquiring such points or interest;

(9) A statement that the applicant(s) understands that the application will be considered by the City Council only after a full investigation and report have been made and the report of investigation forwarded to the City Council;

(10) A balance sheet and income statement prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and submitted under penalty of perjury (but which need not be audited) whether he is an individual, partnership or other entity;

(11) The statements required by this subsection shall be confidential, and the documents containing such information shall be deemed to be confidential documents, and shall not be open to public inspection, but shall be available only to those City officials having direct jurisdiction where any matter relating thereto may be actually pending, except that the names and cities and states of residence only of such pointholders shall be open to public inspection, but all other statements and/or documents shall remain confidential.

(f) Investigations Required. Whenever an application pursuant to the provisions of this Section has been filed with the City Clerk for a permit pursuant to the provisions of this Section, the City Clerk shall immediately refer such application, or a true copy thereof, to the Administrative Officer, who shall promptly and diligently cause an investigation to be made as follows:

(1) A full and complete investigation of the applicant and each pointholder whose names and addresses are shown upon the application;

(2) Concurrently with the filing of an application, each applicant shall be fingerprinted and photographed by the Inglewood Police Department and shall authorize the City to obtain any available criminal offender record information relating to applicant and shall further authorize the updating of that information on an annual basis if the application is approved;

(3) It shall be the responsibility and duty of the Administrative Officer to supervise and direct the Chief of Police to establish the necessary procedures to administer the provisions of this subsection; and

(4) The information received by the Chief of Police pursuant to the provisions of this subsection shall be treated as confidential.

(g) Application Fees. For the purposes of clarification, the application fees set forth in this Section are for regulation, revenue purposes and reimbursement to the City for the costs of investigating and processing the applications, as provided for in this Section, pursuant to the authority set forth in Article XI, Section 5 of the Constitution of the State. Each such application for transfer of interest of a pointholder to an applicant permittee shall be accompanied by a fee, payable to the City as follows:

(1) An application fee in the amount of $500 for each pointholder permit applicant, which fee shall be retained by the City for the payment of the costs of the investigation of the applicant;

(2) The fees set forth in this subsection shall be the property of, and be retained by, the City, whether the permit, and permission to transfer interest in the license is granted or denied.

(h) Granting or Denial of Applications.

(1) Whenever an application for a permit as required under the provisions of this Section is presented to the City Council, and the fees required by this Section in connection therewith have been paid to the City Clerk, the City Council may consider such application on the basis of the following, without being limited thereto:

(i) The financial stability of the applicant;

(ii) Conviction of criminal offenses as denoted in Section 8-97.1(e); and

(iii) Any other information deemed by the City Council to be matters of necessary inquiry.

(2) The City Council may, in its discretion, either grant, conditionally grant, or deny the permit applied for. The action of the City Council shall be final.

(Ord. 99-28 9-21-99)

All pointholders and key management employees of card clubs shall have their background and criminal history investigations updated annually. The card club license annual renewal fee shall be used to cover the cost of such investigations.

(Ord. 93-05 3-16-93)

The City Council hereby determines that an annual fee is payable with respect to all licenses issued pursuant to the provisions of this Article which fee shall be payable annually on the anniversary date of each license issuance, and license fees are hereby fixed as follows:

(a) An annual license fee of $25,000 shall be payable in advance of the beginning of each year in which card club operations are conducted.

(b) All annual license fees shall become the absolute property of the City and shall not be refunded due to the cessation of, or failure to begin such businesses, whether voluntary or involuntary. No refund of the new application fee deposit shall be made.

(Ord. 93-05 3-16-93)

It is hereby declared to be the intention of the City Council that the sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses and phrases of this Article are severable, and if any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Article shall be declared invalid by the valid judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity shall not affect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs and sections of this Article.

(Ord. 93-05 3-16-93)