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Week of July 30, 2002 |
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OLD STRIKE CASINO RESORT
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TUCSON, Ariz., July 30 (UPI) -- I had to sneak into the new
Desert Diamond Casino, because the Tohono O'odham Indians didn't
wanna talk to me. They're still ticked off from last year when I
wrote about the old Desert Diamond Casino.
I'm not sure which part of last year's article they despised. Maybe it was the fact that I said the original casino,
which opened in 1993, had "all the charm of a Greyhound bus
station full of bikers and bag ladies." Maybe it was my recap of
all the fights the Tohono O'odham had with former Arizona
Governor J. Fyfe Symington III, who was opposed to gaming and
finally had to be brought into compliance with the 1988 Indian
Gaming Regulatory Act by federal fiat. Maybe it was my comment
that a pre-fab-crete building surrounded by asphalt with no
alcohol service on the Old Nogales Highway didn't exactly make
for the most pleasant gambling experience.
At any rate, when the tribe opened its huge lavish new property, I got the word from Ned Norris, Director of Marketing
and Public Relations for the tribe, that "We didn't like what the
guy wrote, and we're not meeting with him again."
And he'd seemed so nice when he laid out the plans for the
new casino in his office. I thought that was the whole point--to
build a killer place to replace the sardine-can sawdust joint.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it so you'll know I don't
really have any inside information on the new Desert Diamond.
What I do know is that, if you drive a few miles toward Mexico on
Interstate 19 and get off at Pima Mine Road--cutoff to the ASARCO
copper mine--you'll find an angular chocolate-brown complex that
looks like the world's loneliest shopping mall, but inside you
have four times as much casino floor space as the tribe's
original building. Plenty of elbow room.
The slot machines are enclosed in a circular carpeted pit
that's similar to the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas, but without the
bar in the center. There's a lot of neon cactus dressing up the
room, huge red neon vaults arching across the ceiling and, oddly
enough, window cases displaying fossils and rocks on the
periphery. The fossils and rocks weren't attracting much of a
crowd when I was there, but the slots were humming.
(They haven't closed the original Desert Diamond, by the
way, and on the night I checked them both out, the old crowded
place actually had more people and, in fact, remains the most
profitable slots joint in Arizona.)
The new complex--which includes a poker room, a keno parlor,
a "gourmet" restaurant called Agave that is actually just one
level up from a Chili's, and the beautiful 2,400-seat Diamond
Center that doubles as a bingo hall and performing-arts space--is
built around a courtyard that looks like they have plans for
retail shops at some point. Right now it's kind of empty and
spooky, with a speedboat parked in the center (some kind of
promotional giveaway) and a lonely fountain encased in its own
pavilion. The surrounding land is flat and featureless, with a
few cacti planted here and there and mostly a whole lot of
ground-level parking.
The Tohono O'odhams asked for approval of the new Desert
Diamond in 1998, but the state balked at first, citing 390
unresolved "incident reports" involving counterfeit bills, theft
and other infractions that weren't properly reported to
authorities. The tribe fought that blocking maneuver, though, and
was exonerated, opening on time and on budget with the new $52
million building.
The new Desert Diamond is a little out of the way for Tucson
residents, but it has two advantages the old place didn't. One is
that the area is zoned for alcohol. (They even have a lounge.)
The other is that it's the closest casino to Mexico, and there
are 800,000 Mexican nationals within driving distance. That
doubles the potential customer base--at least until Mexico's
casino proposals go through. Tucson is still one of the most
under-served markets in America, with just 2,000 legal slot
machines--the competing Casino of the Sun also has two casinos--
for a population of 800,000.
The most impressive thing about the complex is the Diamond
Center, modeled after the most admired bingo facility in America-
-the one at Mystic Lake, Minn.--which allows the Tohono O'odhams
to bring in big-name entertainment in a market that just one year
ago had no casino entertainment at all.
They're loading it up, too. Last weekend Sha Na Na and the
Pointer Sisters performed free in the plaza, and they have
something in the Diamond Center every weekend, ranging from
country acts (Lee Ann Womack, Charlie Daniel's Band) to nostalgia
(Drifters, Coasters, Platters) to funk (Isaac Hayes) to Tex-Mex
conjunto (Intocable, Los Invasores, Senora Dinamita). Ticket
prices vary widely, but are generally lower than Vegas, with a
top of $55 (for B.B. King) and a bottom of $15 (Carrot Top).
It's all heady stuff for a tribe of 24,000 that was
languishing in poverty just a decade ago. The Tohono O'odham have
lived on the same land for more than 2,200 years and are one of
the most ancient people of the Southwest. But after hundreds of
years of learning how to raise desert plants from the five-inch-
per-year watershed of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham were
wiped out not by war but by the growth of Tucson, which siphoned
off their water and caused their arroyos to dry up and wither
away. (The federal courts eventually ruled that their watershed
had been stolen illegally, but by then it was too late.)
The saguaro cactus is sacred to them, and their new year
begins in June when the saguaro fruits ripen. At the tribal
capital in Sells, Ariz., they still celebrate the elaborate
three-day saguaro wine feast, but it has long since ceased to be
part of their economy. To survive in the 20th century, they
shifted to cattle raising and, to a small extent, royalties from
mines located on their land. But before gambling came along, the
two biggest employers on the reservation were the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, a common situation
for tribes that can't find enough work for their members. Today
there are 1,200 employees at the two Desert Diamonds, and 60 per
cent of them are Tohono O'odham.
The tribe has a third casino in the little town of Why,
Arizona, on the far western edge of their territory, and they
have tentative plans to build at least one more, since Arizona
law doesn't allow more than 500 slot machines per facility.
They've done a good job on Diamond II, which is a relaxed roomy
place with all the creature comforts, and I would probably go
back there--assuming my picture's not in the Black Book yet.
* © Copyright 2002 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs |