CLUB ONE HAS THE CARDS
Still, City Hall has to make someone pay for parking a car in downtown. That’s when politics enters the picture.
The variations are endless, but a good example came before the council on May 21, 2015.
Club One Casino is one of the rare private businesses in downtown to consistently generate lots of foot traffic. The casino/restaurant is located on the northwest corner of Van Ness and Tulare Street. Not much surface parking there.
But there is the city-owned underground garage across the street, with access from Van Ness. It’s Garage No. 8.
Club One and City Hall renew a deal every year that guarantees a certain number of parking stalls for the casino. The one-year deal before the council last spring called for 100 reserved stalls for $6,000 per month.
Club One gets 100 stalls at $60 each per month. Casino customers are assured of finding a place to park 24/7 throughout the year. Club One’s bottom line is the winner.
So is City Hall’s treasury. Club One in the 2014-15 fiscal year paid $1,047,417 to the city’s general fund in gaming fees/taxes.
The only thing more pleasing to City Hall than general fund money (which is spent at the discretion of elected officials) is general fund money produced by something that actually adds sparkle to downtown.
But, according to a staff report, the cost to City Hall for No. 8’s stalls is $73 per month.
Why doesn’t the city simply make Club One pay $73 per stall? For starters, Club One is renting all 100 stalls, even if some are never filled. The casino most likely thinks it deserves a discount for guaranteed volume buying.
More importantly, there are those gaming fees/taxes. On City Hall’s “Financially Important” gauge, a thriving Club One ranks pretty darn close to landing the Nordstrom E-Commerce Fulfillment Center.
Casino revenue, the staff report said, “enables the City to offset some of Club One’s parking costs.”
So, Club One has the leverage to get a downtown parking break not available to the rest of us. That’s the way life works.
The Club One example is apt for another reason.
The casino last October filed for bankruptcy. The available details are both complex and murky. But it’s clear that an aggressive 500 Club Casino in Clovis is eating into Club One’s business.
Club One in 2010-11 paid $1,449,018 in gaming fees to City Hall. There was been a 28% drop in gaming fees in a mere four years – due, no doubt, to fewer customers coming through Club One’s doors.
The current City Hall-Club One deal at Garage No. 8 expires in less than six months. It doesn’t take a Harvard Business School graduate to suspect Club One executives during negotiations for the next parking contract will want a similar, if not more generous, public subsidy.
The moral of this part of the story: Everyone in a democracy thinks they deserve a break.
