Palomar Mountain News

From: Cor V. Shaffer
Subject:  Palomar Casino? 

La Jolla tribe plans casino, hotel at Palomar Mountain

By EDWARD SIFUENTES – esifuentes@nctimes.com | Posted: Thursday, August 26, 2010 8:01 pm

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN —- The La Jolla Band of Mission Indians is proposing to build a casino and hotel on its Palomar Mountain reservation, according to an environmental study of the project.

The proposal calls for a 480,000-square-foot gambling and hotel facility, according to the study. The proposed hotel would have 200 rooms with six separate villa suites and a parking structure.

Officials with the La Jolla tribe and its partners, Panther Partners, LLC, could not be reached for comment on the project. A website for Parther Partners in Boca Raton, Fla., says the proposed casino is expected to open in January 2012.

The study was prepared for the National Indian Gaming Commission, the federal tribal gambling regulatory agency. The report addresses the casino’s environmental impacts, but it does not say how many slot machines or table games the casino would have.

Under its 1999 gambling agreement with the state, the La Jolla tribe is allowed to build up to two casinos with a total of no more than 2,000 slot machines.

In September, the federal government announced the tribe was awarded $22.6 million in tax-exempt bonding authority for economic development as part of the federal economic stimulus package.

While the bonds cannot be used to fund casinos directly, the bonds can be used to build tourism facilities such as hotels, golf courses and parking structures.

The 700-member tribe ran a 30-machine slot arcade, once San Diego County’s smallest tribal gaming operation, in a convenience store next to Highway 76. The arcade opened in 2002, but was overshadowed by larger neighboring casinos at the Pala, Pauma, San Pasqual and Rincon reservations and later closed.

In 2004, the tribe announced a $25 million deal with a Texas-based management firm called Nevada Gold to build a casino and hotel. The plan called for a 35,000-square-foot casino with 500 slot machines, a restaurant and 150-room hotel.

The tribe could not be reached for comment on why that project was not built.