Family-owned casino sells controlling interest to Las Vegas company

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 | 8:47 a.m.

Sands President Pete Cladianos Jr. announced on Monday that one of northern Nevada's last family-owned gambling halls has agreed to sell controlling interest for about $6.2 million to Desert Golden Sun.

Cladianos, whose father, Peter Cladianos Sr., opened the Sands Regency 32 years ago, said the decision to sell came after two years of trying to raise money to renovate the 1,000-room hotel.

He blamed the casino's financial problems on the large number of hotel rooms in the Reno-Sparks area, increased competition from the Silver Legacy, and on the City Council.

"The city council of Reno is our worst enemy," Cladianos told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "They have refused to do anything but argue about our downtown problems. The bums are still walking around downtown."

Sands Regent is the parent company of Sands Regency and the Copa Casino in Gulfport, Miss. The sale is contingent upon approval from Nevada and Mississippi gaming regulators.

Desert Golden Sun in operated by Shawn Scott, who bought the 236-room Reno Hotel Casino for $4.1 million at a January foreclosure sale.

In the Sands deal, Scott would buy 46 percent of the Sands Regency stock, or all of the more than 2 million shares owned by the Cladianos company.

"I think the Reno market is going to come back in the near future and be much stronger," said Scott.

Cladianos would continue to run day-to-day operations at the Sands Regency.

"The whole purpose is to get financing to compete,to make our properties competitive," Cladianos said of the sale.

"We have got to create a kind of attraction that will bring people to us. We can't do it without money."

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