Sign the Coalition's Petition

Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem

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To California Attorney General Bill Lockyer:

We urge you to deny a gambling license to Irving Moskowitz.

Instead, please investigate how Moskowitz got the poor city of Hawaiian Gardens to pay for the lion's share of developing his Hawaiian Gardens casino. We believe there is evidence that, to secure Hawaiian Gardens approval of his casino and millions of public dollars, Moskowitz unfairly manipulated elected officials and won key elections by intimidation, including hiring gang toughs and city employees.

Instead of granting Moskowitz a gambling license, please consider his foundation's employment of mostly Mexican immigrant workers for tips alone at its gigantic bingo game in Hawaiian Gardens. The Moskowitz Foundation justifies this conscience‚shocking labor practice at the bingo, which hauled in $27 million in 1998, by citing a state law that establishes bingo as a charity and requires bingo workers to be volunteers.

We join the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem, which is campaigning against a casino license for Moskowitz ó and against his use of the bingo proceeds to fund militant Jewish settler groups bent on sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian peace ó in asking: how could, why would, poor Mexican immigrants "volunteer" to raise money for the oppression of Palestinians?

Instead of granting Moskowitz a casino license, please revoke his foundation's bingo license. Despite assurances that he would distribute the bingo proceeds locally, Moskowitz has sent almost all the money out of state, on radical right-wing groups opposing Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Moskowitz-controlled Moskowitz Foundation has only made significant donations within Hawaiian Gardens during the time when Irving Moskowitz sought approvals for his casino.

Instead of ignoring the state gambling law, which requires a licensee to be "[a] person whose prior activitiesÖ do not pose a threat to the public interest of this state," we urge you to consider against that standard:

1. Moskowitz' financing of a provocative tunnel near Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem, sparking rioting in which more than 70 Palestinians and Israelis died; and

2. an inciteful web-site assassination game reportedly operated by Cherna Moskowitz (Irving Moskowitz' wife and co-applicant for the casino license) which encourages the violent elimination of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres and other peace advocates within the Barak government; (removed from host sites after complaints and the launching of an Israeli criminal investigation, the "game" can be viewed here).

3. Moskowitz' intimidatory infusions of cash and hired gang toughs in the 1995 and 1996 casino-related Hawaiian Gardens elections and recalls even though the statute of limitations may have expired for criminal prosecution of these acts; the question of character is not subject to statutes of limitations; and

4. Moskowitz organization actions that produced unusual arrangements with the Hawaiian Gardens Community Redevelopment Agency, causing the latter to spend of millions of tax dollars on Moskowitz' casino project and to, astonishingly, hire Moskowitz' lawyer ó even though the statute of limitations may have expired for criminal prosecution of these acts; the question of character is not subject to any statute of limitations.

Instead of granting Moskowitz a license to run the Hawaiian Gardens casino, please review the manner in which he caused the redevelopment agency to spend over $8 million for the project through the agency of a city whose annual budget has been around $3 million ó and take legal steps to force Moskowitz to restore the money to Hawaiian Gardens, where it is desperately needed for local economic development.

Please fill out the petition form below. We will collect your names and forward them on to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem will not give your names out to businesses or other organizations.