Gone to the Dogs: the El Cerrito Kennel Club
Today, locals head to El Cerrito Plaza to shop for groceries or hunt for bargain clothing. But in the 1930s, on the site where Ross and Lucky’s now stand, people tried their luck at the dog races.
The El Cerrito Kennel Club opened on Saturday, Oct. 22, 1932, with an evening program of nine races featuring eight or nine dogs. California state law made it illegal to bet on races, but the Kennel Club’s proprietor, William “Big Bill” Pechart, was not deterred. He had already remodeled and refurbished the Castro Adobe, reinventing it as the glamorous Rancho San Pablo casino. To get around state laws banning betting on dog races, his brainwave was to deem each dog a corporation, in which “investors” could buy shares. Should the corporation do well, owners would redeem their shares for a healthy profit. And if the corporation faltered…. well, every businessman knew how to write off a bad investment.
For those unwilling or unable to risk such an investment, the El Cerrito Kennel Club offered other amusements, including promotional giveaways and headline-grabbing stunts: races pitting ostriches against horses, for instance, or exhibitions in which monkeys dressed in jockey silks rode the dogs around the track. Off the track, one local feed store boldly advertised the availability of greyhound food.
But Pechart’s evasion of state gambling laws had already caught the attention of local authorities. The track was finally closed down in 1939, after the lease was revoked. Pechart himself remained the unofficial godfather of East Bay nightlife for another decade, until his clash with a federal senate committee investigating interstate crime saw him charged with contempt of Congress.
