In a gentrified Bay Area, the former ‘Rottenest City’ fights to preserve its history

Emeryville’s Oaks Card Club has been in Cole Tibbets’ family for over a century. He has memories of coming into the card room as a kid with his dad, hearing stories about the guys who lived in the boarding house-style apartments on the top floor. He’s now the manager, greeting regulars as they approach the front door, but he’s worked every job in the building.

“I learned to play poker before I knew how to read,” Tibbets said.“It was part of the fabric of my life growing up.”

The same is true for generations of Emeryville residents. In a city that’s now defined by retail outlets, biotech offices, Pixar studios and a Chevy’s Fresh Mex, the squat brick building on the corner of San Pablo Avenue now feels like the closest thing Emeryville, a tiny town of 12,000 wedged between Oakland and Berkeley, has to a cultural center.

Oaks is one of Emeryville’s largest and most stable employers and its single largest source of tax revenue. In a community founded as a sanctuary for exiled gamblers from other Bay Area cities, it is the last such establishment in town.

“The card club may sit in contrast to retail outlets and new biotech companies,” said John Bauters, the mayor of Emeryville. “But it was here first. It’s a really important part of our cultural history.”

In fact, Emeryville’s entire existence is owed to gambling. The city was incorporated in 1896 after owners of a racetrack in what was then unincorporated Alameda County grew weary of interference from the sheriff’s office. In 1903, the city hall was built using funds donated from one day of business at the racetrack. Over time, Emeryville earned the moniker “the Rottenest City on the Pacific Coast.”

Even as attitudes toward gambling shifted, the city retained that distinction. A 1968 study called it “the least prestigious place to live in the Bay Area.” In 1985, a Sports Illustrated article described it as “a seedy little city tucked among mud flats.”

For decades, the city subsisted economically on the premise that if you wanted to escape the strict societal norms in the Bay Area, you came to Emeryville.

Some of that ethos has remained. But now, people come to Emeryville to shop. A city that was once filled with stacks of railroad ties is now home to numerous developments and the Bay Street Mall, a large shopping district.

In 2015, UC Berkeley researchers labeled the city as in a state of “advanced gentrification.” In 1980, 28% of the city’s population was Black. By 2020, that had fallen to 15%. The Urban Displacement Project has listed Emeryville as having a “probable displacement risk” – meaning it has characteristics strongly correlated with losing low-income renters.

In this new, reimagined version of Emeryville, Oaks Card Club has become one of the few institutions left that define the history of the bayside city.

“It’s definitely a gem,” said Anna Nikitaras, the owner of the Bank Club, a bar down the street and another Emeryville institution. “I know they say Emeryville is becoming better, but for who?”

For Nikitaras, the Bank Club and Oaks Card Club are representations of old Emeryville. In her view, the city doesn’t do enough to support these longstanding, local businesses. And even though Emeryville seems to be thriving, Nikitaras is not sure how much longer she’ll be able to keep the Bank Club open. People’s habits have changed, and it’s unclear if new residents attracted to Emeryville’s shopping options are patronizing its historic businesses.

At Oak’s Card Club too, things are not what they used to be. Inside, the atmosphere is still almost ecclesiastical — the high ceilings, the whir of cards, and quiet murmurs among the players reminiscent of some sort of strange and sacred ceremony.

But the card room’s bar and Hofbrau have remained closed coming out of the pandemic. The tax revenue supplied to the city is at 80% of pre-pandemic numbers. It remains to be seen if the card club will continue to attract new, younger patrons in an era of online gambling and flashy casinos.

“I’ve never run this club trying to be the biggest, fastest, newest, never been one that wants to make a lot of changes,” Tibbets said. “I have this historical club with a time-tested business model.”

Longtime residents described the card room as a melting pot and a social equalizer. Tibbets said he’ll frequently see a retired doctor playing cards with a college kid, a construction worker, and a mom waiting to pick up her children from school. For those invested in the future of Emeryville, losing Oaks would be a significant blow to the culture and history of Emeryville.

“A lot of people look at it and write it off saying ‘Oh it’s a card room,’ but a lot of people who go there are like family,” Mayor Bauters said. “It’s considered a place of vice, but it’s also a source of community.”

“If that goes, what’s next?” Nikitaris said.

Addiction, of course, is a real concern. But the atmosphere of a card club is a far cry from the shining casinos in Reno and Las Vegas. There are no slot machines, flashing lights or free drinks — and there are clocks on every wall. Instead, people gather to play classic card games — blackjack, three-card poker, and baccarat — with relatively low stake bets. Most tables operate at a $5 or $10 minimum.

The regulatory structure of California card club licensing also means that players are gambling against each other, rather than against the card room. Oaks Card Club makes its money through a seat fee, rather than a house advantage.

“I don’t want people to blow their savings here,” Tibbets said. “If I see someone’s having a run of bad luck, I’ll tell them maybe it’s time to go home.”

At least according to Bauters, the partnership between Oaks and Emeryville is symbolic of a longstanding, unofficial policy not to police morality or impose puritanical ideas onto its residents.

It remains to be seen what role the card club will play in Emeryville’s future; in the Bay Area writ large, cities face a tenuous balance between what will be and what was. But to Nikitaras and Bauters, the concept of place-keeping — allowing residents who live in a space to preserve its stories, culture and institutions — is a powerful element in achieving that balance.

“These are family establishments, they’ve rooted themselves in our community,” Bauters said, “It’s a testament to how important it is for cities not to displace people.”