The Santa Ynez Valley in Southern California brands itself as bucolic wine country, a mix between grape-covered hills and Old West charm. The Chamber of Commerce touts the hospitality and diversity of the valley's few thousand residents, but one thing that isn't mentioned in the Chamber's materials is the Chumash Casino Resort, a business run by the government of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians that made a reported $366 million in revenue in 2008.
The government of the Tribe, which claims 249 on-reservation members, is attempting to acquire relatively autonomous federal trust status for a greater proportion of the Tribe's historic land.
