State’s Suit On Slots Comes Up Lemons

Dismissal of the state’s lawsuit seeking to ban slot machines from Indian casinos will barely affect reservation gaming, an official said.

U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle of Spokane on Tuesday dismissed the lawsuit filed by the state against the Spokane Indian tribe. The Spokane and Colville tribes operate casinos with slots in defiance of a state ban on the machines.

Van Sickle dismissed the state’s “friendly” lawsuit because it did not offer tribes a remedy if they should they win in court, said Scott Crowell, the Spokane tribe’s attorney.

“What the state wanted amounted to no more than an advisory opinion that it could choose to ignore,” Crowell said. “We want closure. If we win the lawsuit, we want some court order that allows us to go forward and play those games that the court says we are entitled to play.”

Still pending, however, is a 1994 case in which the U.S. attorney’s office in Spokane sought an injunction to shut down the Spokane Tribe’s slot machines. In that case, Van Sickle ordered the machines closed. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco granted the tribe a stay, pending an appeal.