June 29, 2009
The drunk … the devil … the watermelon … Loteria!
Loteria’s back at the Grandview Senior Citizen’s Center now that City Hall has lifted a ban imposed in May on the bingo-like game played with pennies because the Parks and Recreation Department thought it was illegal.
“People are upset,’ Emma Marquez, a regular at Grandview, said Friday. “Why can they play bingo and not loteria?”
Although Marquez knows many of those who play Loteria, she was unaware Friday that the traditional game had been resumed just the day before.
On the other side of the center, about 18 Loteria fans were back at it, playing with frayed picture boards and bags of pennies, glad that the controversy and contention that upset life at the center was over.
They said Loteria had been played at Grandview for years with no questions asked.
Widely known as Mexican bingo, according to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, Loteria probably had its origins in 15th century Italy and made its way to Mexico in the 18th century. The game is played on boards, each with 16 images out of the 54 used in the game.
As someone calls out the images, players mark them with stones or beans or, in the Grandview version, pennies. A person wins by getting four images in a straight or diagonal row, on the four corners of the board or in a square formed by four images together.
At Grandview, where small stakes bingo is also played, the winner collects the pennies on other player’s boards, rarely netting more than $1.25.
“I was asked to stop it because it was considered gambling,” said Carlos Barrera, who took over as the center’s new manager in May.
Barrera said he was given the reason that while the city had an exemption from the state to play bingo for cash at its centers, the city did not have an exemption for Loteria.
“When they told us we can’t play with pennies, I was the one who protested,” said Aurora R. Reyes, who has been coming to the center and playing Loteria there for at least the last decade.
Riled by the whole affair, city Rep. Susie Byrd said the decision to stop Loteria was made without consultation with the city attorney’s office and is typical of the problems in the Parks and Recreation Department these days.
“Nobody would tell me who made the decision that this was illegal,” Byrd said. “Nonprofits have broad exemptions for bingo, and Loteria is, in fact, bingo.
“The issue had never been raised before. The parks staff determined on their own it was illegal and shut them down. I called the Legal Department, and they said, ‘Of course, it’s legal.’ ”
Byrd said she intends to bring questions about the Parks and Recreation Department before City Council at next Tuesday’s meeting. There is no council meeting this week.
“Nobody would tell me who made the decision that this was illegal,” she said.
City Manager Joyce Wilson said the question about Loteria was settled soon after it came up at City Hall.
“But for some reason, word never got down to the centers,” she said. “It should have been resolved weeks ago when the issue was first raised.
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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30, or 630-6622.