Friday, April 17, 1998 | 10:32 a.m.
The brightly painted signs boasting "cash for gold" and "adult novelties" in downtown Las Vegas could soon become a thing of the past.
The city of Las Vegas is looking at drafting an ordinance that would either move pawn shops, adult bookstores or second-hand dealers outside of the downtown area, or force them to change their outside appearances.
One such ordinance scheduled to be introduced at the April 27 City Council meeting would phase out the stores over a period of time if the stores are currently operating in designated "entry-way corridors."
These corridors, thought not finalized, include Las Vegas Boulevard, Fremont Street and Bonneville Avenue. The ordinance prohibits new pawn shops, adult bookstores and second-hand dealers from opening up for business there, as well as giving the existing stores a time frame to change their nature or move. The time frame has yet to be determined, according to Val Steed of the city attorney's office.
The idea has been on the drawing board for at least a year, Steed said.
"There has been a general unwritten policy that the council didn't want to see an increase in those uses on Las Vegas Boulevard," said Theresa O'Donnell, director of the city's planning and development department. She said the City Council's main concern was the aesthetics of pawn shops' exteriors, which usually involve several signs with bright lettering covering the windows and exterior walls.
"And we have heard concerns from other businesses," she said, "that if that's the kind of businesses that are on the Boulevard, they don't want to relocate. They don't want those kinds of businesses next to them."
For years, the city has prohibited pawn shops and second-hand dealers from operating on certain portions of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street. And Clark County also has stopped pawn shops from doing business on the Strip.
"It has to do with the image we are perceived as having," said Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams in 1995, right after the Commission voted to disallow pawn shops on the Strip. "(The image) is that people come in and we are taking their money, all their possessions, everything they have."
But the pawn shop owners say all the political rhetoric about image and Las Vegas is nothing short of putting a proverbial gun to downtown's head.
"It's pretty sad when we're a financing institution and we're being put in the same category as dirty book stores," Pioneer Pawn owner Erminia Drobkin said. "This is an adult area. And let's face it, there's a strip joint down here. Don't tell me my store is worse than that."
Drobkin contends that she gets about 300 tourists a day who want to see pawn shops in Las Vegas and that the stores are part of the city's allure as well as its history. Not to mention that movie directors have asked her to film either in or outside her shop for works including Stephen King's "The Stand."
"If my shop is so ugly," she asks, "why do they want to do that?"
Pawn shops are strictly regulated by the state. Anyone selling something to a pawn shop is required to show identification, which is recorded. All serial numbers for merchandise also are recorded and those records are turned over to Metro Police each day. If it's discovered that a pawn shop purchased something stolen, the store could be shut down.
Other store owners refused comment until they had seen the proposed ordinance, but didn't express any surprise that the city was looking at moving them or making them change.
Other cities, like San Diego, have done facade-renovation programs for pawn shops and adult-oriented businesses as part of their downtown redevelopment programs. O'Donnell said the city could move forward with a similar program that would match the money any shop owner spent on fixing up its store front windows.
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