Escondido, CA Gambling & Gaming: Card Room Licensing (2026)

Section 16-130 sits in Chapter 16, Article 3, Division 1, the article that separates businesses the city licenses and regulates from businesses it refuses to license at all. Rather than setting fees or background-check standards for card rooms the way it does for other gambling-adjacent uses, the city places card rooms in a short, three-item prohibition list alongside coin-operated gaming machines and bungee jumping. No permit, conditional use permit, or business license application can cure the prohibition; the ordinance does not carve out an exception for a private club, a charity fundraiser, or a business incidental to a restaurant or bar.

By contrast, § 16-131 lists other gambling-related activities the city does license with a police or fire chief background investigation, including bingo and casino parties, underscoring that the omission of card rooms from that list is deliberate rather than an oversight. & Prof. ) leaves cities free to authorize or prohibit card rooms locally, Escondido's choice to prohibit them under § 16-130 is the city exercising that local option rather than restating state law. A violation of the ban is treated the same as any other Chapter 16 violation: § 16-249 makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment of up to six months, or both, and § 16-251 treats each day the business operates as a separate violation. The police department, which investigates business license applications under § 16-132, is the enforcing agency for any covert card-room operation discovered in the city.