NORTH BEND — The idea to permit social card games in the city died abruptly Monday afternoon, when the North Bend City Council said doing so could be more trouble than it’s worth.

“I think it’s a hassle we don’t need. There are plenty of places to go,” said Councilor Janet Rubin at the North Bend City Council work session, after Mayor Rick Wetherell said the city doesn’t need to spend time collecting licensing fees and overseeing card tables when The Mill-Casino Hotel is in town. 

North Bend does not allow card rooms in the city, but Coos Bay does permit them and has done so since 1987.

In Coos Bay, social card games are defined as games between players in private homes, private businesses and private clubs of public accommodation, where no house player, house bank or house odds exist and there is no house income from the operation of the game.

Councilors Barry Hayes and Larry Garboden agreed with Wetherell and Rubin’s sentiments, while Bill Richardson questioned whether a social card game could be well regulated by the city.

Only Councilor Frank Amatisto, who first suggested the idea at the council’s last work session, Sept. 10, fought for the ordinance. At the time, he said he would like to allow local businesses to operate Texas Hold’em card games in the city.

“I think you are putting the people who do have businesses in the area at a disadvantage. There are places in town where we could have it,” Amatisto said, Monday. However, when asked which businesses, he said he didn’t know.  “Texas Hold’em is getting to be such a popular game that it is a disadvantage to businesses in North Bend. If they wanted to have it, they don’t have the opportunity to do it.”

In Coos Bay, applicants must go through background checks, pay a nonrefundable $65 investigation fee and pay $25 for work permits for each employee involved in or supervising card room activities. People who have been convicted of a felony in the past 10 years or of five misdemeanors within five years of the date of application, those who have been convicted of any crime involving gambling within the last five years; or those who have had a license revoked or suspended three times by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the last of which occurred in the last five years; are not allowed to operate a card table.

Several businesses in Coos Bay, including the Eagles Lodge, The Timber Inn, Mak’s Old City Hall and The Silver Dollar, run card games.

Although the ordinance in North Bend will not move further at this point, due to a lack of consensus, Wetherell said the council is not slamming the door on the topic. Rather, it will reconsider such an ordinance if the local business community shows some interest.

“I don’t want to spend $2,000 to write up an ordinance no one is asking for,” Richardson added.

After the meeting, Amatisto said “That’s the way it goes,” noting that the state’s rules about gaming, which do not allow the business housing a card table to directly profit from a game, conflicts with what he wanted to do.

On Tuesday, during the regularly scheduled North Bend City Council meeting, resident Melvin Lesher praised the council for opposing social gaming.  He said he believed opening that door would have brought a burden on the city, while possibly endangering those who like to gamble.

“There’s more than 52 ways to cheat someone playing cards,” Lesher said after the meeting, adding that he often plays at The Mill. “The safety of the participants of that type of activity is what we need to protect. ... If somebody wants to gamble, there’s plenty of places to gamble and they can do it in other cities. Let those cities burden the cost of public safety. I just don’t think we need it in our city.”