INSIDE

Border lineups deliver final call to bingo

After over 30 years, Fireman’s Bingo is closing its doors.
On October 19 bingo manager Lillian Fiore announced to a roomful of under 50 regular patrons that their last bingo session would be November 30 and handed out five free bingo daubers to each player. “I told them they had 12 sessions to use them all up,” she said sadly.

The Point Roberts Volunteer Fireman’s Bingo started in 1974 at the Breakers, with Fiore’s husband Joe Fiore as the manager. “Harry Johnson helped them get it started and loaned them the hall,” she said. Johnson was the former owner of Breakers Tavern on Gulf Road.

When business boomed, and it did for most of the bingo operation’s history, the charity was able to fund many of the local fire department’s major capital improvements – the Benson Road Fire Station named for former commissioner Harry Thompson, equipment including the ambulance and quick response vehicle – as well as perks for volunteers like jackets and Christmas parties. Bingo pays the taxes and utilities on the fire station, and pays rent for use of the bingo hall space.

“The biggest hit was the smoking,” Fiore said of bingo’s decline. They lost many regulars when a state law prohibited smoking in bars, restaurants, clubs and non-tribal casinos in 2005. More took their business to new Canadian casinos. “Then this last summer it was the border that hurt us bad. I’ve tried all sorts of things, trying to keep it going.”

Point Roberts Volunteer Fireman’s Bingo president Fred DeHahn said there wasn’t much local support for the bingo operation. Most customers are older and come across the border. “They just aren’t making bingo players anymore,” he said.

At their September and October meetings, fire commissioners had speculated the bingo operation might shut down at the end of 2007. “We all know it’s going to happen sooner or later,” said commissioner Bill Meursing, reflecting on declining attendance at the once packed bingo hall in the Benson Road fire station. “It’s kind of a past life experience – bingo,” commented commissioner Susan Brownrigg.
Fire chief Bill Skinner said once affluent bingo operations have fallen on lean years with the proliferation of casinos on both sides of the border. “Bingos are having problems across the state,” he said.
At the Washington State Gambling Commission Susan Arland said smaller operations like Point Roberts Fireman’s Bingo can stay in business as long as they show positive cash flow, and continue to provide some funding to their intended charity – in this case the Point Roberts Fire Department.

“There’s a minimum amount they need to return,” Arland said. “Otherwise what they’re doing is bingo for bingo’s sake. That’s not what the law had in mind. Bingo is intended to promote its stated charity.”

Arland also said if bingo operated in the red for two consecutive quarters, “they can get in trouble. The director could suspend their license.”

“We usually have negative cash flow in the winter but then make up for it in the other three quarters,” DeHahn said. In the first quarter of 2007 gross gambling receipts for the bingo operation were $39,702, but after prize payouts and expenses the net income that could be used to fund fire department requests was $321. The second quarter of 2007 they fared better, with $54,046 in net receipts and a net income of $2,529. Arland said the Point Roberts bingo was averaging five percent of their receipts being available to help their stated purpose. “There’s higher but there’s lower too,” she said, surveying other non-profit bingos in the state.

DeHahn said they wanted to close down the operation and transfer remaining reserves to the fire district before the gambling commission compelled them to. “We didn’t want to start really losing money,” he said. Staff members who took a pay cut to try and keep bingo going will get their pay reductions reimbursed. “It’s only fair,” DeHahn said.