State probes Brigadiers bingo

State probes Brigadiers bingo License is on the line at hearing next month before Racing and Wagering Board.

The state Racing and Wagering Board has accused the Syracuse Brigadiers of breaking rules in its bingo operations and improperly using bingo earnings. The Brigadiers dispute the accusation. Proof of the accusation could put Brigadiers bingo out of business.

At the heart of the matter is the contention that the Brigadiers operate commercial bingo under the guise of supporting a drum and bugle corps rather than a nonprofit musical group using bingo to raise money. In a 28-item show-cause order, the Racing and Wagering Board contends Brigadiers bingo was set up improperly, pays people to run games that should be operated by volunteers and spends bingo earnings on expenses not allowed by state law.

The matter was scheduled for a hearing today in Albany, but the state Racing and Wagering Board agreed Wednesday to postpone the hearing until at least mid-January.

The Brigadiers have been ordered to show why the state shouldn't revoke its license for at least a year. The show-cause order states that because of the way the group operates, the Brigadiers are not a nonprofit allowed to conduct bingo and other games of chance under the state's general municipal law.

The Brigadiers counter that they have been in constant contact with the Racing and Wagering Board in an attempt to comply with regulations that are often difficult to decipher.

"Did we do something wrong? Yes. But we've tried to clean things up," said Joe Geswaldo, Brigadiers' spokesman and chief financial officer, a paid employee.

Stacy Clifford, speaking for the Racing and Wagering Board in Albany, said the state agency could not comment on the enforcement action because it is a pending legal matter.

The Brigadiers - including their subsidiaries the Brigadiers Alumni Club and Brigadier Booster Club - handle about $6.2 million a year in income from bingo and pull-tab wagers before prize money is distributed. Pull tabs, sometimes called bell jars, are individual-sale, small-stakes gambling products allowed by the state for use by nonprofits.

The revenue after prize money, license fees and gaming expenses is about $1.4 million.

The Brigadiers have used their bingo earnings for a corps performance budget of $879,854 this year. The rest goes to running the bingo hall.

The drum and bugle corps has 160 members; the Boosters Club has about 300 members; and the Alumni Club numbers 40.

Both Geswaldo and Clifford said the Brigadier nonprofit gaming operation is one of the largest in the state other than those operated on Native American territory. The operation supports a successful organization that won four national championships in a row before coming in second this year in Scranton, Pa.

The state contends the Brigadiers leased their building six years ago at 1860 W. Fayette St. to be used only as a bingo hall, which would require separate licensing that was never obtained for the building owner.

The Brigadiers argue the building is the group's headquarters and is used for more than bingo. The Brigadiers use the building for storage, meetings, occasional practices and offices.

The show-cause order alleges the Brigadiers improperly borrowed money for bingo hall construction from Wacon Ltd., a Long Island-based charitable gaming supplies and consulting firm, and improperly paid off those loans with bingo earnings.

Geswaldo contends Brigadier bingo was patterned after other operations around the state and operates the same way.

"There's seven halls in Rochester structured the same way as us," he said. All seven are run by drum and bugle corps, including Syracuse's rivals the Rochester Crusaders and Empire Statesmen who ran large bingo operations before the Brigadiers.

Robert Ventre, a Syracuse lawyer representing the Brigadiers, said state Racing and Wagering Board regulations are often difficult to interpret.

Ventre said that in almost every instance when the state cited the Brigadiers for improper use of bingo earnings, corps members put that money back into appropriate accounts.

The state Racing and Wagering Board shares regulation of bingo with local municipalities.

City of Syracuse Corporation Counsel Terri Bright said the administration of Mayor Matt Driscoll has had no problems with the Brigadiers and has not participated in the state's regulation action.

But former Mayor Roy Bernardi was concerned about the size of the Brigadier operation and his corporation counsel, Rick Guy, worked with the state to rein in the bingo hall, which he called a "bingo mall."

Geswaldo said he hasn't figured out why his organization has drawn state attention, except that Brigadiers bingo competes with smaller operations.

"I'm still trying to figure out where the animosity was formed," he said. "One day people liked us; the next day they didn't."

Clifford, from the Racing and Wagering Board, said no other similar enforcement action is under way against another nonprofit bingo operation in the state.

Just reporting the news. I don't personally know them or have any insight into their operation other than hearing they were one of the first orgs in the entire state to qualify for a waiver under the announced criteria of showing at least a 15% loss in revenue since the smoking ban came into effect. In fact, I've never heard of them until the news about their waiver approval hit the press. Shortly thereafter came the rush of allegations of impropriety with the way they run the business. By all outward appearances, it seems mighty fishy. I honestly don't know how ethical they are, but as familiar as you appear to be with the Drum and Bugle Corps charities "industry", I am with the anti-smoker crusades and their associated "charities" and I have no doubt about the anti-smokers' ethics.

I've read through a few of your posts on the usenet group you've provided, but haven't seen any new revelations other than links to news articles and opinions. From what I see, 6 million a year in revenues before prize money distribution isn't some behemoth corporation. Most of the improprieties identified in the press consist of paying people to run the games and using some of the revenues for renovations when they weren't allowed to, not exactly the caliber of an organized crime syndicate which I hear some of the detractors inferring. The World Health Organization, American Cancer Society, and a whole slew of non-profit health "charities" organized under IRS 501(c)(3) appear to do a lot worse than that with regards to lobbying and hosting lavish conferences.

If you know something more about the Brigadiers that you haven't said, don't hold back.

Wow - How to distill all I know to a few words to an outside audience...

Anti-smoking ban people are concerned that a group who obtained a waiver appears to now be getting attacked. The assumption is that it's the waiver which brought the Brigs under increased scrutiny.

This is not the case.

Bingo operations which use drum & bugle corps as a front have been under scrutiny for lack of adherence to the non-profit charitable regulations which permit such "business interests" have been under increased scrutiny for a few years now. For those of us in drum & bugle corps who care more about drum & bugle corps than the few people abusing power and more interested in greed, the abuses have been widespread for decades now.

The Brigs' apologists claim they are being unfairly targeted by competing gaming operations who are envious of their "success", a few reporters with axes to grind, and a corrupted and power-hungry regulatory commission. For the sake of argument... Even granting all those allegations, I think it's a prime example of karma and chickens coming home to roost.

The legal purpose underlying the Brigs' bingo operation is to fundraise for a drum & bugle corps. I argue that operations like the Brigadiers, and many of the persons involved, have benefitted from the corruption and destruction of the drum & bugle corps activity. There are Brigadiers from former decades who are none too happy about what the current owners of "the assets" are doing to their name, and in drum & bugle corps, one's alumni, history and traditions are key values.

You are correct in mentioning other abuses of non-profit status. However, cancer is still being fought, and promoting health (for two examples) are still thought to be positive values. In contrast, we drum & bugle corps types are being told our activity is dead and will die out when we do, and the only way to "save" it is through its becoming a form of marching band - something which could have been done 30 years ago when we still had 100s of drum & bugle corps from coast to coast, a veteran's family could still find local kids to sound taps at funerals, and all the community values charitable organizations have these special privileges for.

The people involved with the Brigadiers are involved in international consulting, instrument company 'consulting' (and political preferences), and other forms of preferential treatment for "their" people who support these sorts of corporate abuses. The costs are to drum & bugle corps, music education programs (which I believe are being eliminated in part in places to eliminate some of the abuses I have seen in various parts of the country), who gets certain teaching jobs - and who doesn't, and other forms of cronyism.

And then, there are the rumors and tales of skimming and under-the-table monies... Setting people up, death threats, filing false police reports against critics, bullying/mobbing, fraud in order to get information, computer viruses, the exploitation and corruption of children...

A corps director who was forced out politically two years ago administered four corps - three of them nationally touring corps, and one of them was viewed as the popular favorite and "the most drum corps" left in DCI - on $600K per year.

The Brigs' budget is supporting far more than its corps. And while the Brigs' haven't done a whole heck of a lot to support its more traditional alumni group, they - and these connected individuals - helped a very great deal with a Florida corps. And now that NY scrutiny has heated up (this was before the smoking issue arose), guess where there's this spankin' new bingo hall?

This has resulted in a Rochester junior corps going inactive this season.

So due to all this, it's my hope that the Gaming Commission does the right thing by drum & bugle corps - and pulls the plug on this fraud, and the people who are benefitting therefrom.

BTW, there's yet another individual in California - no "direct" ties which can be "proven", of course. Their city bingo game license was pulled last April because of a lack of accounting records and audits requested over a year's time - I found the news reports of the Brigs' delay because of alleged "counsel" issues amusing and familiar. Anyhoo, this guy out in California (who is from Salamanca and appears to still have family there), was running this bingo operation since the late 1970's - and since 1985, there wasn't even a corps being fielded. For this charitable service, he's declared $60K/year all this time. I don't have independent verification as yet, but I hear he's being sued civilly and criminally. It would be a sad thing for the State of NY to approve the operations of such a group of individuals before all this breaks.

The only ethics these people show is what they are required to demonstrate when their feet is held to the fire. Otherwise, they do and operate as they wish, and rely upon corrupt methodology to silence their targets. And the reason I can be fairly open in what I say is that they know that I can very well prove that I have a quite reasonable belief in the truth of what I say.

And any person familiar with such corporate self-interested "politics" can see very well how rotten things must be from such.

There's a whole lot more, of course. But this should give you a fairly good idea. Some of the human costs - and the arrogant indifference thereto - has been beyond disgustingly shameful, and is NOT drum & bugle corps. These are people who laugh at notions like values, honor, patriotism, truth and decency, personal freedoms and respect for the individual. Considering that smokers already have a hard time dealing with the sorts of perceptions which help lead to anti-smoking bans, associating with people like these, long-term, is not at all in anyone's interest - except the corrupted.

-- Catherine

-- Catherine

Again, all I see, even with your new info, is heresay, conjecture, and opinion. I didn't really expect you to testify with anything more because this isn't a court and you're not sworn in.

I do think you are mistaken when you say "anti-smoking ban" people are "supporting" them. All that I see is supported here is an observation that the timing of this development getting so much airtime after their waiver approval when the fights and rhetoric over waivers are escalating and the crumbling of the support for the smoking ban appears to be so much more than coincidental.

I'd hope you are aware that anti-smoking is a multi-billion dollar industry. Not to discount your concerns, because they are very real considering the small size of the whole Drum and Bugle community, but even if what you say is true, this whole Brigadiers issue is still small potatoes benefitting relatively few with an equally relative small amount of money compared to the relatively few self-righteous anti-smokers and their fatted lawyers making an obscenely comfy living by taking our money from us to pay for spreading more lies and half-truths to perpetuate the myth that they have to take more money from us to "protect" us from ourselves and others (most notably "the children") from us is heinous. Your own words against the Brigadiers can aptly be applied to the paid professional anti-smoking community at large, "Some of the human costs - and the arrogant indifference thereto - has been beyond disgustingly shameful" and is NOT indicative of reasonable tobacco control advocates.

"You won't get very far diminishing people by speaking of the "small" size of a community, nor by characterizing the events and my experiences dismissively as "conjecture, hearsay and opinion". Just a suggestion."

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll consider it, even though it appears that you are attempting to read more into my comments than was intended. I did say that I did not intend to discount your concerns and it certainly wasn't intended to "diminish" you. And I'm sure as hell not defending the Brigadiers. I have no reason to, for I do not know any of them personally and have no insight into any of the things you allege other than what has been printed in the press and the few opinions I read on the usenet group you pointed out.

The fact is that all your evidence so far presented was all conjecture, hearsay, and opinion. That's not dismissive. I commend you that you at least outright clarified your statement about this individual in California that, "no "direct" ties which can be "proven",...". And about the improprieties you allege of the Brigadiers, you said, "there are the rumors and tales of skimming and under-the-table monies". That's more than anti-smokers and tobacco control lobbyists do. But the fact remains that none of that is hard evidence. Calling it hearsay is simply an accurate description of what it is, and that is not diminishing. I'm sorry you perceived is as such. I'm simply saying that I don't know and you haven't proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He said, she said arguments are hard to prove, especially when the person you're trying to convince doesn't have any insight into the motivations of the parties involved, and I have absolutely none. That said, quite a bit of hearsay does have at least a little basis in fact, and if your allegations are right and proven, then I hope, like you, that the culprits reap the just consequences of their improprieties.

"And there are far more arguments of substance - and a lack of similarly substantive arguments from the other side - on the link to rec.arts.marching.drumcorps I provided."

And I never said there was any there from the opposing side, either. If I did, show me. Look, lady, I'm not taking sides, especially not after hearing from only one side. This thread is not the place to try the Brigadiers bingo people. You feel wronged by them in some way and you informed us. You've done your duty. But the trial and the assessment of the facts will happen in the courts or whatever hearings they will be subject to. And if this were a court, I haven't seen anything in what you said that indicates you would even be called as a witness with inside compelling evidence for the prosecution.

You are obviously very passionate about your opinion. Believe it or not, I am empathetic to that. But you should realize by now, I'm just as passionate about the excesses of the anti-smoking crusades and the way this unfair law whizzed throught the NY legislature without due process. This article was not posted to vindicate the Brigadiers, but to inform others of the possible improprieties of this whole bullshit waiver fiasco with health depts forcing people to open their books to justify a waiver to a law which denies them from exercising their personal property rights in the first place. I'm seen nothing from you yet that indicates you're even interested in that.

Look, I have a little advice for you as well. I have the feeling that you aren't here to learn about the smoking ban at all. You also don't seem to be aware of and may or may not be interested in the hundreds of small business owners across NY feeling the drastic effects of this draconian law on their livlihoods which is diminishing their standard of living. Instead it appears you are here for the sole purpose of trying to hijack this thread and take it on a tangent to try to educate us on what you feel are the excesses and improprieties of those associated with the Brigadiers, who obviously cause you some grief. Until you realize that fighting for the rights of people like the owner of the Middleport Inn who was forced to close down her family owned business because waiver provisions weren't even considered for her and the hundreds out there in similar situations are one of my main concerns right now, and I see you feign a little more than obligatory interest before going into your story, then what makes you think you'll be able to convince me that I should be interested in your story? Think about it for a minute.

Thanks, lockjaw02 - I appreciate your reply and see more sincerity in it than I saw in the first. I apologize for coming back at you as I did; this response appears a bit more on-point. There are still things which bother me about it; but I wouldn't be surprised if you were dealing with the sorts of "techniques" I do. The reason that I did so was because there was a distinct possibility, based upon the style of your reply, could well have been a plant - in order to get information, make more contacts, and quite a number of other fraudulent methods which quite a lot of people making money off drum & bugle corps often employ. One of the reasons these people need their "business interests" in bingo, souvie sales, consulting and other frauds is to keep supporting a network which sews disinformation. We were once told it was so we could have "experts" working full-time on behalf of charitable and service corps interests. We've learned our lessons... and have found that the "full-time, hard workers" we've "gained" aren't working for drum & bugle corps, but for their "business interests". I spent two weeks in upstate NY at job training. I was a non-smoker most of my life, and started smoking about 10 years ago. I find the outrage over second-hand smoke and the resulting smoking bans to be horribly unreasonable, and part of what I think is a larger cultural entrenchment of an expectation and acceptance that government can and should control people - becoming more and more powerful, as well as resulting businesses which rest therefrom. I am also less concerned about second-hand smoke (both when I smoked and when I didn't) as I am about these controls and the money and diminished expectations relating thereto. I am old enough to remember the 1950's and early 1960's culture. And while smoking, drinking and other "sins" aren't something I feel ought to be promoted as "cool" in and of themselves, I believe that if people are upset by such they should appeal to negotiation and education, as well as building mutual respect amongst different people - not the by the force of law, extending the power of government, and increased divisiveness and inflaming issues. Knowing as I do how these people operate, I wouldn't be surprised that there is a lot of corruption and cronyism relating more to a few "business interests" and politics between those who are far more concerned about their power and short-term financial benefits than the issues of costs to more decent people, and fairness and sanity and freedom under the law. As such, I am quite interested in recent allegations being made on RAMD about the Syracuse mayors and supposed allegations concerning the people involved. This is one of the reasons the guy in California got his scam halted - there was a change in leadership, and new people who insisted upon accountability were installed. Of course, all these allegations of cronyism with regard to the bingo game could well be a smokescreen - attacking such are about the only defense these people have (it could *never* be their own lacks). However, if - as you point out - the Brigs were nevertheless able to get a waiver for their little operation and there are perceptions of unfairness and cronyism concerning such - that might be most interesting, with regard to both anti-smoking ban types and we drum & bugle corps people. I am all about exposing unfairness, particularly when such is done by those persons I criticize - because either someone is being exploited, or there's more than likely something "funny" going on amongst not-nice people. Rarely do such unusual transactions turn out to be innocent ones. Invariably what happens with these types in corps is that they inevitably piss off more genuinely-achieving types. DCI and DCA have burned so many bridges over these past three decades - which is why there are so few corps left, hardly any of which even resemble drum & bugle corps. Unfortunately, that means that those who remain are either young kids who have little understanding of what they have become a part of, the naive who want so much to believe what they are being fed (of which I was once one), or the mediocre or corrupted who believe that ethics, decency and fairness are the scams - and one must "do what it takes to be successful". In any case, I am available for any attorney, court or other objective and open process to detail what I know, what I have experienced and what I have been subjected to as a result. I have a host of witnesses thereto. I'm also somewhat active in a couple of other areas of interest, including the international anti-bullying campaigns - which includes corporate strategies, no matter the costs to people. It wouldn't take very many subpoenae at all to provide all the proof of what these people are, and frankly the public responses and silences have been more than enough in most cases. And frankly, the lack of substantive investigation to find out the sorts of people the Brigs are is most illuminating in and of itself. For while quite a lot of disinformation is being spread, I've actually received some very refreshing inquiries from people who, being more adept at such politics, have a better sense of whom and what they are dealing with. These are people who have worked very hard to eliminate "proof" in the clear sorts of ways of letters of admission and the like. However, there are more than enough proofs in what people have witnessed, the inconsistencies, and the style of "advocacy" which details nothing but guilt. I am not here to hijack anything. What I am here to do is to say that this response of yours - of wanting to find out why and how the Brigs got a waiver when other operations don't - is most promising. But when the sort of people I know who benefit from being big-money (compared to your local Elks Lodge, VFW post or other such fundraisers you list on your page - which could well double for the small drum corps which were eliminated by these "clever" corporate types over the last 30 years) bingo operations pretending to be corps fundraisers use their getting a smoking ban waiver as marketing for the alleged respect their organization enjoys, or the effective business relationships they have with government people, I see nothing to be proud of. I would suspect anyone who helped put their request at the head of the list - and be looking more closely at it. I am quite sure that they used their allegedly being a championship drum & bugle corps, and that their bingo "mall" also fundraises for churches and other respectable charities, as promotion for their waiver. Usually, a lot of well-meaning people will buy that. Good people are used to front for scam artists and frauds all the time. And that could be all that this particular waiver was about. Or, it could well be the public marketing spin on some very dirty dealing. Or both. And the outcome of such tactics could well continue to be the elimination of small, independent and genuine groups and businesses - as detailed on your list and as we have seen in drum & bugle corps - and by the same sorts of people who have elevated cronyism and secrecy to a not-so-fine art. -- Catherine

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