DEMING, N.M. — The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma will remove electronic bingo machines from its unopened casino off Interstate 10 at Akela near Deming, the head of the tribe says.
Chairman Jeff Houser said the Fort Sill Apaches have been leasing the machines from another Oklahoma tribe, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, which had deferred lease payments until June 10 to give the Fort Sill tribe time to open its casino.
Last month an advisory opinion from the National Indian Gaming Commission said there's no basis under federal law for the tribe to be able to operate a casino on land it owns near Deming, about 500 miles away from the tribe's main governmental offices in Oklahoma.
Houser said the Potawatomi Nation wanted the bingo machines back. He said the machines should be removed this week.
"The deadline wasn't met, so we're returning them," he said.
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The Fort Sill Apache Tribe has about 50 slot-machine-like bingo machines at the casino.
Houser said the tribe is continuing to pursue a gambling operation.
The tribe opened a restaurant and smoke shop in April on a 30-acre parcel along I-10. But its plan for a casino drew opposition from Gov. Bill Richardson, who ordered state police in February to block access to a building on the tribal land if gambling started.
The tribe has been seeking the National Indian Gaming Commission's permission for gambling, but the commission's acting general counsel, Penny Coleman, said in an advisory opinion that the tribe lacked legal grounds to open a casino.
At issue is land purchased by the tribe in 1998 and taken into trust by the Interior Department for the tribe in 2002.
In March, the tribe submitted a gambling ordinance to the commission to gain federal approval for operating a casino. The tribe has since withdrawn the ordinance, said Shawn Pensoneau, congressional and public affairs director for the federal regulatory agency.
The Fort Sill Apaches have turned instead to federal court in Oklahoma. Its lawsuit asks that the federal government quickly handle an application to grant reservation status to the New Mexico land — a possible way for the tribe to open a casino.
The tribe contends the federal government must "timely process" the reservation application under terms of a 2007 settlement agreement of a land dispute in Oklahoma with the Comanche Nation.
Federal law prohibits gambling on Indian lands taken into trust after October 1988, except under certain conditions.
Members of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe are descended from the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches, who lived in parts of New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico but were removed in the 1880s and sent first to Florida and later to Oklahoma.
In her legal opinion, Coleman said 26 enrolled members of the tribe live in New Mexico — about 4 percent of the membership. About 47 percent of the tribe's members live in Oklahoma.
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