Harbor officials near decision on shipboard games.

Card gambling on the Queen Mary tourist ship faces its first popularity test this month.

Long Beach harbor commissioners are nearing a crucial vote, as early as this week, on what to do with the landmark attraction. They could sell it, scrap it, sink it, or turn control of the 365-room floating hotel and historical curiosity over to a new operator, who has been advised to establish a "card club" on board.

A card casino that earns money on dealing games like poker and pan has become a leading last-ditch proposal being considered by City of Long Beach officials to save their landmark tourist ship from folding.

The current operator, Walt Disney Co., is bowing out of its contract with the port on Dec. 31, saying it can't make money under the ship's current hospitality-oriented set up.

Commissioners have said they don't want an 82-ton ghost ship on their hands. The economic consultant they hired produced a three-volume study in June that determined the only solid, profit-making scheme would be to establish a mid-sized "upscale" card club, plus some kind of entertainment center and museum on deck.

With other local card-casino operators reporting annual revenues of $100,000 to $600,000 per card table, the idea is tempting.

The city's Harbor Department staff at press time last week was preparing recommendations for the commissioners, who have final say on the ship's fate. The commissioners conceivably could chose an option as early as Sept. 8 that enables, or rules out, on-deck gambling.

The commission staff has received 18 proposals from would-be operators from as far away as Hong Kong and New Zealand. Thirteen wish to buy the ship and tow it to another port. One proposer would plop the attraction in Tokyo Bay and promote it as a luxury hotel and office complex. Five other proposers would continue to operate it on the Long Beach waterfront. But whether they favor a card casino has not been made public.

Although the Queen Mary's historic tour alone attracted 808,000 visitors last year, annual attendance has been declining at a compounded average rate of 9 percent a year since 1984.

Making the Queen Mary pay for itself is a top goal of the harbor commissioners. The port, which owns the ship and tethers it on the waterfront, has subsidized Disney's operation at an annual cost of $1.8 million a year.

A card casino could be built for $4.9 million and turn an operating profit of $5.4 million even in its first year, said the report by consultant Economics Research Associates.

The study also touted Long Beach's proximity to large communities of Asians, who are among the higher rollers in L.A. County's other card clubs. Asian enclaves in Orange County are nearby, and others in Monterey Park and Garden Grove have good access via local freeways, it noted. Asians account for about 55 percent of gamblers at the region's largest card casino, the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens. Chinese are the No. 1 ethnic group among Bicycle Club patrons.

Despite its profit potential, the proposed card club is highly controversial in Long Beach, where a dose of organized-crime innuendo is being tossed around by opponents of the proposal. (Ballot initiatives to legalize card casinos will be put to voters in November in Long Beach, as well as in Hawthorne and Inglewood.)

It's a touchy subject, even among some commissioners, who are among the most eager to see the Queen turn a profit.

"Card clubs suck up trash (low-life characters) like a vacuum cleaner," one commissioner said, asking not to be named. "Clean" games and a safe atmosphere, however, are in the club's interest, countered TABULAR DATA OMITTED George G. Hardie, general manager of the Bicycle Club, which employs 73 guards. (By comparison, the City of Bell Garden's entire police force consists of 56 officers) Hardie, however, ha shad problems. A major stake in the Bicycle Club was seized in 1990 by federal agents resulting from their Florida lawsuit that alleged drug-smuggling money was used for seed money to found his club. Hardie is managing partner of the owning partnership.

Meanwhile, back in Long Beach, the economic study considered more than 60 alternatives for the ship. They ranged from keeping the status quo to scuttling the 56-year-old ship and advertising the sunken relic as an intriguing destination for scuba divers and "tourist submarines."

A campaign to save the Queen -- a Long Beach landmark and selling point for 25 years -- is on the lips of city boosters and historic preservationists this summer. It has become even more charged with the controversial card-club proposal.

"There's a lot of emotionality that's clouding clear thinking here," complained Commissioner Joel Friedland, a critic of both the card club and of continued city subsidies to the ship. "I don't think gambling is viable. It's nonsense."

"The question is," Commission President David Hauser has said, "how can we keep the Queen Mary here without losing masses of money?"

The consultant's study estimated $6 million in immediate maintenance expenses are necessary, with another $21 million needed within five years.

Gambling backers, however, predict 1,700 new jobs, additional city revenues and other benefits if the Queen Mary can be anchored to bettors.

"Isn't it about time we stop the flow of jobs and tax revenues out of Long Beach and act to make a better economic future for our city and jobs for its citizens?" asked the ballot argument in support of Proposition J.

That measure, to legalize the club, was put on the November ballot by the Long Beach City Council this summer.

Passage of Proposition J would allow "card clubs" featuring games like draw poker, low-ball poker and panguingue ("pan"), to be set up on the ship or in the 55 acres surrounding it within the city Harbor District. But "only for so long as the Queen Mary remains open and operating in or near its present location," the measure reads.

The debate over card clubs may very well heat up as November approaches.

Mayor Ernie Kell, in the ballot argument he penned against the measure, drew a dark scenario, referring to the tainted founding of Bell Gardens' Bicycle Club and Commerce's Commerce Casino. In connection with the Commerce Casino's original operating grant, former city officials pled guilty to bribery and racketeering in the early 1980s.

Gambling: the cities' cut
                                 1991            1991
                                gross        tax revenues
                               revenues        to cities
Bicycle Club Casino
-Bell Gardens               $90 million       $11 million
Commerce Casino             $76 million       $10 million
-City of Commerce
Normandie Casino &          $36 million        $5 million
Eldorado Club Casino(*)
-both in Gardena
* figures were combined by City of Gardena for the separately
owned clubs.
Source: Economics Research Assoc.

"People who operate those games skim," alleged one commissioner who asked not to be named, suggesting that a club operator would pocket income for itself before making an official report to the city.

Because the harbor department would likely peg its lease rates to a percentage of the gross, "We would have to be down there all the time with guys in green shades and guns" to protect city revenues, the commissioner speculated.

Bicycle Club operator Hardie, who is also president of the California Card Club Association that represents several dozen clubs, said local cities have the power to dictate chip-counting procedures, conduct spot checks make undercover visits and otherwise verify the casino's revenue totals.

The economic study concluded a casino makes sense in Long Beach on many fronts, beginning with its advantageous location. It is close to Orange County, a strong untapped market for card clubs thanks to its "high income levels, many professionals and Asian and other ethnic communities...," the study stated."

One existing club, the Normandie Casino in Gardena, gives recorded information over the phone in Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog and Spanish.