|
Week of August 13, 2002 |
|
CHINOOK WINDS CASINO & CONVENTION CENTER
|
LINCOLN CITY, Ore., August 13 (UPI) -- Martin Wheeler, one
of the go-getter executives who buzz all over the Chinook Winds
Casino, will never forget the time they booked George Jones into
the showroom. (Okay, it's a bingo hall, but it converts nicely.)
Eleven hundred people made their way through the striking
Chinook Winds lobby, with its dramatic escalators, exposed blond
wood and towering fake trees--and, after the concert was over,
they filed right back out again and ordered up their cars from
the free valet parker. Most of them never even crossed the
threshold of the gaming floor.
That's what happens when you forget that tried-and-true rule
of casino design--always put the showroom at the most remote
place in the building, so that you have to walk past every gaming
area to get there. "It's not a good setup," said Wheeler. "They
can take a left in the lobby and not gamble at all."
Of course, the other lesson learned is that George Jones is
just not the right match for this bustling little casino on the
dramatic Oregon seacoast. But you can forgive the Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians for still trying to work out the kinks.
They've only been in this business since 1995, and they've had to
fight and scrap for every little piece of the market they've
captured.
The ironic thing about Chinook Winds is that it's by far the
most beautiful and elaborate of Oregon's casinos, located in the
most scenic place--when you eat in the restaurant, you have a
spectacular view of pounding surf and even an occasional
migrating whale--but it's separated from Portland, the state's
population center, by three hours of narrow winding two-lane
highway.
It's a very picturesque road as well--Highway 18, if you're
familiar with the area--which means that, if you do decide to
make that trek to Lincoln City, you might be tempted to stop at
every winery along the way and sample the local grape, or visit
the special museum they've built in McMinnville for Howard
Hughes' odd-looking Spruce Goose airplane, or just strike out
into the woods and commune with nature. (Just avoid the logging
trucks.) Then again, you might want to stop at Spirit Mountain
Casino, which is not as fancy as Chinook Winds but is located at
just about the halfway point to Lincoln City. (Okay, that's the
last we'll mention them in this article. But they do quite a bit
more business than Chinook Winds, mainly because of their
convenient location.)
In other words, Chinook Winds is not the kind of casino that
can attract people who sprint over after work, play a couple of
hours, have a few drinks and go home. You've gotta have a major
commitment to be at Chinook Winds--unless you're independently
wealthy, in which case you can take a helicopter service from
Portland that will have you there in 40 minutes. But if you're
independently wealthy, you won't have to pay for the helicopter
anyway, because Chinook Winds will pick up the tab to haul your
hiney out there.
So Chinook Winds is a destination resort--and yet it has no
hotel! Lest you think this was an oversight, it was actually a
compromise they made with the local owners of motels, inns and
bed-and-breakfasts. When the new casino opened in 1995, it wasn't
exactly welcomed with open arms. There was an organized effort to
stop them, and the reason is that this is a very old resort area,
perhaps the most beloved in Oregon, and the site of the summer
homes of Oregon's elite.
Tiny resort communities like Oceanlake, Delake, Taft, Cutler
City and Nelscott have been catering to a sedate outdoors-type
tourist for many decades, and the idea of a casino that would
suck all their business indoors was not a happy prospect. In
fact, those six communities with seven miles of beachfront had
banded together in 1964 as a sort of incorporated coastal tourist
magnet--together they all formed Lincoln City--and at the time
there was not even any Indian land within the corporate limits.
That changed with some aggressive politicking by the tribe.
But the truth is, the only reason the Siletz Tribe targeted
Lincoln City as a possible casino location is that they were run
out of Salem--their first choice--by intense opposition.
It's one of those stories that's increasingly common in the
world of Indian casinos. The Siletz, who are actually a
confederation of 26 separate tribes, had ceased to exist in 1954,
when the Bureau of Indian Affairs ruled that they had stopped
functioning as tribes and were no longer in need of federal
status. (At that time, economic self-sufficiency was reason
enough to cut a tribe loose.)
It took an act of Congress to reestablish them in 1977, but
by then their reservation was long gone. They still owned 3,660
acres, but it was scattered in small parcels all over the county.
Of the original 1.3 million acres granted to them by executive
order in 1855, they had sold or given away most of it, choosing
to let the land go to individual members instead of remaining
tribal land. Then, after being defunct for 23 years, the
situation was a mess.
The problem, for tribes that want to run casinos, is that
you can only have Class III gaming (the best kind) on what's
called "trust land," which is land specifically set aside for an
Indian reservation and held by the federal government for the
benefit of that tribe. They didn't have any land like this that
was suitable for gambling, but they forged ahead anyway, making
up a list of nine sites and hoping they could convince
authorities to let them buy it and then convert it into trust
land.
The place they zeroed in on was a 16-acre parcel in Salem.
But the governor was firmly opposed to the off-reservation
acquisition of land for gambling. The Bureau of Indian Affairs
supported the Siletz members at first, then backed off when the
governor claimed that "a casino in Salem would erode the social
and moral fabric of the community and that quality of life would
decline." (Oddly enough, this was the same governor who had
approved video poker in bars the same year. Video poker is
commonly perceived in Oregon as a nuisance and a social problem,
and is referred to as "video crack.")
So the 3,600 tribal members took to the federal courts,
suing for the right to acquire fee land and place it in trust.
Meanwhile, the tribal attorney discovered that the governor had
negotiated a gambling compact with another tribe--the Grand
Ronde, owners of Spirit Mountain--that allowed them to use land
that was not "in trust." (Actually the governor claimed to have
made a mistake.) Claiming discrimination, the Siletz pressed the
issue, and in November 1994, with the Oregon delegation pushing
hard, they got Congress to enact a resolution declaring 11 acres
in Lincoln City "in trust" and part of the Siletz reservation.
(The property IS part of the original Siletz Reservation
established in 1856, but then so is pretty much all of the land
in the county.)
Despite opposition from a local "No-Casino Association,"
they dedicated a temporary casino just three months later and
opened for business on May 27, 1995. The first building was known
as "The Tent"--a testimony to how flimsy it was--and contained
just 250 slot machines, 12 tables and a deli. But the early
revenue from that makeshift casino gave them enough income to
build the $45 million casino and convention center complex they
have now. It opened in the summer of 1996, with special guest
Tammy Wynette kicking things off and skydivers performing.
Part of their unwritten deal with the city, though, was that
they wouldn't threaten the local economy, which is based on
tourism, especially summer tourism, when 59 small motels stay
booked pretty much throughout the season. If anything, the casino
lengthened the season, since gamblers tend to show up even in the
dead of winter.
Their main strategy, as they try to coax people down that
lonely highway from Portland, is to build up the convention
business and to offer a lot of promotions--car giveaways,
Megabucks slots ("We have the only real slots in Oregon," says
Wheeler--as opposed to video slots), and special events like
"Surf City," their September festival and car show, and their
"Run for the Wind" motorcycle rally.
The best thing they've found so far, though, is boxing.
They've had several major bouts, many of them televised, the
latest one called "Commotion on the Ocean II" and promoted by
Sugar Ray Leonard. Main draw for the May 31 bout was James
"Lights Out" Toney, the 33-year-old former middleweight champ who
has constantly ballooned up in weight through super middle, light
heavy, cruiser, super cruiser and heavy weight classifications.
For his match against contender Michael Rush, he fought at 197
pounds (super cruiser) and stopped him on a TKO in the 10th
round. (Unfortunately, Rush was a last-minute replacement for
Jason Robinson, but the casino still got exposure on ESPN 2.)
For such an isolated casino, they also have a pretty
aggressive entertainment policy, putting on at least one show per
month (two in the summer) with mostly B-level touring talent:
Lorrie Morgan, Don Ho, Loretta Lynn, Paul Revere & the Raiders,
"Walela with Rita Coolidge" (she's billing it that way to take
advantage of her "Cherokee heritage"), Smokey Robinson, Williams
& Ree, John Kay & Steppenwolf, Engelbert Humperdinck, the Beach
Boys, and Three Dog Night. All the shows are on Friday and
Saturday nights, when drive-ins from Portland and points east
have time to spend the night.
The best places to stay, if you wanna hang close to the
casino, are Surftides Inn on the Beach (154 rooms) and Shilo
Oceanfront Resort (247 rooms), both of which are within easy
walking distance. Surftides has a lounge that's popular with
casino employees after work, but the hottest locals joint is
actually in the casino itself--the Rogue River Room & Lounge,
which has comedy nights and karaoke nights, as well as typical
lounge acts.
The casino's food and beverage director, Roo Arledge, is an
Australian chanteuse who sometimes appears in the lounge herself.
(She's a recent transplant from Nashville, where she handled food
for the Opryland Hotel & Convention Center.) And the executive
chef, both for the buffet and the more elaborate Rogue River
Room, is Ed Wickman, who was formerly executive chef at Merrill
Lynch World Headquarters in the World Trade Center--and went back
there to serve meals to rescue workers after the attacks.
The brochure for the casino says that Chinook Winds
"respects nature and its infinite gifts." In 1998, the last year
for which statistics are available, nature's infinite gifts
included 1.7 million visitors to the casino. A few of them came
for "Walela," but most of them came for Moolah.
*
© Copyright 2002 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs
|