SAN JOSE -- The newly built Casino M8trix could be open in a week and shuffle the city's gambling deck for the first time in nearly two decades after Police Chief Chris Moore approved its long-awaited permit late Friday.
The decision came as a relief to the card room's owners, who had hoped to secure the permit and open Casino M8trix four months ago as a relocation and re-branding of the old Garden City card room they bought out of bankruptcy five years ago and continue to operate.
"We're excited," said Sean Kali-rai, a M8trix consultant. "We're grateful we've come this far."
The chief's approval is conditional, and the card room must satisfy several requirements outlined in a report from the city's gaming administrator, including demonstrating satisfactory internal controls and surveillance systems.
"Once all those things are done, they're good to go," Moore said.
Kali-rai said M8trix could open late next week depending on how quickly they can satisfy the permit conditions and mobilize the transition.
Even with the permit in hand, it will take some time for the card room owners to transfer operations from Garden City, a fixture on Saratoga Avenue since 1976, to the new M8trix site on Airport Parkway. They must secure state approval to transfer the liquor license and round up the extra employees whom they had hired to staff the larger card room but could not put to work without the permit.
"They'll be hustling,
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A key permit issue -- whether to allow additional gambling on the top floor of M8trix' eight-story tower -- remains unresolved. Police have cited concerns about their ability to monitor activity in the top floor gaming rooms, even though they would be kept under surveillance and open to the public. Moore said Friday he expects an additional report on upper-level gambling within 60 days.
"With the right conditions present we might be able to make it work, but that's something we have to work through," Moore said. "What we wanted to do is work with Casino M8trix to get them open on the ground floor, because it doesn't serve anybody's interest to have a vacant building. So this is a great step forward."
The rival Bay 101 card room, less than a mile from the M8trix, opposes allowing top-floor gambling there.
Bay 101, itself a reinvention of an older card room in Alviso called Sutter's Place, marked the last big play in San Jose's gambling industry when it opened in 1994 off Brokaw Road across Highway 101 from the M8trix site. Pitching itself as San Jose's "place to play," Bay 101 now faces renewed competition from the M8trix, which beckons card sharks in radio advertisements as the "new place to play."
Card rooms under state law allow poker and other games in which the players bet against one another rather than the "house" as they would in a Las Vegas casino, and have been a presence in San Jose for generations. They've developed a colorful and complex relationship with City Hall, where they are seen as cash cows, thanks to a 15 percent city tax on operations that generates about $15 million a year, but also potential sources of crime and corruption.
Dozens were indicted in 2000 for crimes including loan sharking and extortion at city card rooms.
The city over the years has shrunk the number of card rooms allowed to two, barred them from contributing to political campaigns and imposed a thicket of regulations considered the toughest and most costly in California.
The card rooms fought city efforts to bar 24-hour gaming and complain of struggling to compete with the state's 94 other card rooms as well as Internet poker, tribal casinos and the lure of Las Vegas.
Garden City's new owners, Eric Swallow and Peter and Jeanine Lunardi, proposed Casino M8trix to offer poker players a little Las Vegas sparkle. They won unanimous City Council approval for the relocation in May 2010. In March, they completed the $50 million M8trix building boasting programmable LED lighting displays, imported mosaics, a custom floral aroma and a 165-foot tower where they hope to allow additional gaming with a top-floor city view.
But police weren't prepared to issue the permit needed for M8trix to open in April as planned. The owners sued unsuccessfully to force a decision in a process they described as redundant and plodding. Police argued they were slow to produce requested documents for required background checks and satisfy concerns about monitoring and surveillance.
But Moore said that "the relationship with the ownership group has improved dramatically in the last month, which has allowed us to move forward much more quickly."
M8trix officials notified prospective new hires by e-mail Friday that the card room will be opening shortly. Kali-rai said some were forced by the long wait to find other work, and that M8trix will be hiring.
"It's exciting," said Jessica Carreras, 20, hired as a waitress for the new card room's restaurant, moments after receiving the e-mail summoning her to report for employee training next week. "It's going to be a big thing to come to San Jose. I'm glad I waited."
Contact John Woolfolk at 408-975-9346. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/johnwoolfolk1.
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