Sure Bets and Bad Faith

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COPS & BOOKIES: In the early 1960s, lower State Street featured some busy bookies, operating quietly in restaurants and bars. I was covering the cops, who were well aware of this and wanted to crack down, but needed evidence.

Somehow, all traces of betting paraphernalia were gone when officers would arrive. After they left, bookie-bartenders resumed normal business. Were the bookmakers tipped off to the raids, cops wondered? According to one Santa Barbaran I talked to recently, who’d been working in one of the restaurants at the time, one suspected tipster was none other than someone connected to the District Attorney’s office. Turned out his father worked in one of the bookie joints, and he didn’t want his dad to get arrested, my source told me.

On the Beat

Santa Barbara was a different kind of town in those days, more tolerant of innocent, non-violent yet illegal pastimes. Where was the harm, people thought. If a well-known resident was pulled over for drunken driving, he might get a ride home instead of a trip to jail.

The bookie system, it seems, had leaks. Occasionally, past-posting went on, my source said. It was sometimes possible to learn results of a race after the ponies hit the finish line, and then place a bet in time to be a sure winner.

So, to beat my deadline and score a scoop, I wrote a story about the raid in advance, so it would appear in the then-afternoon News-Press. Today’s news today.

But the time came when local do-gooders demanded a stop to such semi-public flouting of the law. The insidious evil had to be scoured from the streets of fair Saint Barbara. So a raid was planned to break up the lower State Street bookie business. My detective friends tipped me in advance. So, to beat my deadline and score a scoop, I wrote a story about the raid in advance, so it would appear in the then-afternoon News-Press. Today’s news today. My story was edited and sent down to the composing room while I waited at the phone for confirmation from cops that the raid had actually taken place. But for some reason the raid was delayed. I fretted: What if someone in our composing room, someone who didn’t mind phoning in a wager now and then, read the story and alerted the bookies?

Cops would never again trust me with a tipoff. Luckily, word didn’t slip out. The raid went off, my story ran, and, as I recall, we ran names and photos of the arrestees the next day. Whether one of them was the father of the DA’s office tipster I don’t know. Now, of course, there’s no need to phone the corner bar and wager your paycheck on the ponies. You can just trot over to Earl Warren Showgrounds and lay your money down via satellite betting, compliments of the State of California.

I’m not a betting man, but I went there one day a few years ago in search of a column. I was there with my wife-to-be, Sue, and her parents, Pete and Vivian De Lapa. Pete, from an East Coast betting family, didn’t mind a small wager now and then. I’ll never forget one guy I interviewed. Said he’d been betting the ponies for a quarter-century.

“How much have you won in that time?” I asked. “Oh, I figure I’ve lost about $250,000,” he said blandly.

I was stunned. “Why,” I asked, “do you keep betting?”

“Well, I’m hoping to win it back.”

WESTSIDE STORY: Quinn and Frank told me about a woman who’d often come around the neighborhood, fundraising for Harding School. “I was always impressed that she would come around with her kids,” Quinn told me.

Then, a couple of years ago, the woman came around selling Tupperware. Frank ordered some. About two months later, the woman came by and told them that the person who was supposed to order the items kept the money without ordering the Tupperware.

The woman offered to reimburse the family on a weekly basis, a little at a time. Frank told her not to worry about it but repay him if the other person ever paid her back.

“Well, about a week ago, she knocked on the door, told my husband the woman had paid her back and gave him the money. We thought that took a lot of integrity, honesty, and record-keeping. It was just one of those warm, fuzzy moments. I hope her kids know how wonderful their mom is and that they follow in her footsteps.”

15 FALL: Illegally fired News-Press reporter Dawn Hobbs says her “heart goes out” to the 15 employees laid off last week by owner Wendy McCaw. “The recent layoffs and pay cuts, along with previous layoffs,” indicate a paper with serious financial issues, she said. Instead of wasting money on lawyers and “frivolous lawsuits,” it would be better for McCaw to end the current labor dispute and agree to a fair contract, Hobbs said. After 15 months of what she termed “fruitless” negotiations, the National Labor Relations Board is prosecuting the paper for bargaining in bad faith.

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