KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Authorities shut down a tribal-owned casino in the city’s downtown Friday morning, and started to remove more than 150 gambling machines.

Meanwhile, authorities said they have charged an unidentified casino employee with a pair of gambling-related offenses, including felony commercial gambling.

Last Wednesday, the National Indian Gaming Commission said the casino, which opened last fall in narrow trailers attached to a renovated Masonic Lodge building across the street from City Hall, was operating illegally. The commission gave the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma a week to respond.

State Atty. Gen. Phill Kline had promised not to take any action during the one-week grace period. Police and agents from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation waited until about 6 a.m. Friday to shut down the casino.

“I think the reaction of the city is that we didn’t feel it belonged there to start with and it was determined by the National Indian Gaming Commission to be an illegally operating casino, so it needed to be shut down,” said Mike Taylor, a spokesman for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan.

Sebelius praises shutdown

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius called the action of the attorney general’s office and local law enforcement “very appropriate.”

“It’s important for Kansans to understand that if there is gaming here in the state, it will be operated within the bounds of the law and that we’ll take prompt action to regulate operations that are outside the bounds of the law,” she said.

But Jason Hodges, a tribe spokesman, said the tribe was in the midst of contesting the commission’s opinion. Authorities should not have closed the casino until that process had run its course, he said.

Kansas City, Kan., Police officers wheel out about 150 gaming devices from the Seventh Street Casino after it was closed by the Wyandotte County District Court. Police officers and KBI agents executed the warrants closing the casino about 6 a.m. Friday.

“We were doing what we were told to do,” he said. “We were following procedures. To have county and local officials and everyone else jump in is completely ludicrous.”

Although state and local officials asked the tribe to comply with the commission’s ruling and voluntarily close the casino, Kline’s office said in a news release the casino remained open for business until Friday morning.

No casino qualification

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the tribe’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have kept the casino open. The judge did so because the commission opinion was not “a final agency action,” said David McCullough, the tribe’s attorney.

“It’s Indian land,” he said, stressing that state and local officials had no jurisdiction. “The only issue is whether it’s available for gaming, and that’s a federal, not a state, issue.”

In its finding, the commission said while the site is on tribal land, it does not qualify for a casino because the tribe resides in Oklahoma and does not have a strong historical connection to the site, among other things. But the commission also said it would listen to any information the tribe might give the agency that “causes us to reconsider our opinion.”

“I think it’s probably just starting,” McCullough said.

Authorities interviewed about 10 patrons who were in the casino when it was shut down, and they were then allowed to leave, Taylor said. Authorities were video taping the facility Friday morning and two casino employees were helping authorities remove money from the gaming machines. The money will be treated as confiscated evidence. The machines were being disconnected late Friday morning and carried out of the building.

Bingo-slot distinction

The tribe said the machines were classified as bingo machines, though they look and play like slot machines. The distinction is important because facilities that have slot machines are required to negotiate gaming compacts with the state, while facilities with bingo machines do not, Hodges said.

“You are playing against players at other places across the country, not against the house,” he said.

Also Friday, authorities disclosed they have charged a casino employee with one count of possession of a gambling device, a misdemeanor, and one count of commercial gambling, a felony. Jerome Gorman, an assistant Wyandotte County prosecutor, said Friday the employee had not yet been served with a warrant and the prosecutor’s office hasn’t released his name.