Hours after Assemblyman Joe Lentol announced a bill to legalize poker, all his would-be marks folded.
One by one, community board members, would-be politicians, and current elected officials found excuses for not wanting to sit across the green felt from the state’s longest serving lawmaker.
Lentol has “too good a poker face,” said Jo Anne Simon, a Democratic district leader in neighboring Boerum Hill, declining to play Bushwick Hold ’Em with the Greenpoint assemblyman.
Former Council candidate Evan Thies also declined, saying that Lentol is “too shrewd” and would rob him blind.
Rob Solano of Churches United for Fair Housing is, frankly, afraid of Lentol — especially after the lawmaker’s promise to swim in the Newtown Creek in an effort to win a high-speed broadband network from Google.
“I wouldn’t mess with a guy who wants to swim in Newtown Creek,” said Solano.
Only Marty Needelman, a lawyer with Brooklyn Legal Services, said he would join the poker circle.
But Needelman admitted that he would let Joey “The Legislation” Lentol win.
For his part, Lentol said he was anything but the card shark.
“I’d play with someone who doesn’t play very well,” he said.
When asked if he would join the game, Councilman Steve Levin (D-Williamsburg) surprisingly declined to comment.
