BREAKING NEWS: SB 157 has been gutted indicating the Barwest gaming Compacts for Barstow are DEAD!

As of September 7, 2007, SB 157 "An act to add Sections 12012.53 and 12012.54 to the Government Code, relating to gaming" has been gutted by its author Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) and is now "An act to amend Sections 23356.1, 23399.6, and 25503.9 of the Business and Professions Code, relating to alcoholic beverages."

That would seem to imply that the efforts to ratify two separate gaming compacts for the Big Lagoon Rancheria and the Los Coyotes Band of Indians are dead for this session as a lobbyist for both the Big Lagoon Rancheria and the City of Barstow reported in late August.

For the second year in a row, the principals behind Detroit-based Barwest LLC have failed, despite their propoganda machine's claims, to gather any real support for either of the Compacts in the state legsialture. In 2006, an Assembly Committee actually voted down the two Compacts. And with Big Lagoon chairman Virgil Moorehead threatening to return to pursuits to build a casino on his Humboldt County reservation; it would seem the Compact for the Los Coyotes tribe is no longer valid.

For at least the second time since 2001, Barwest is back to square one -- the first time being in 2004 when Governor Schwarzenegger denied a stand alone casino for Barwest and the Los Coyotes tribe in Barstow.