Opponents of NLV casino project lining up for protest

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 1998 | 11:13 a.m.

NevStar 2000's casino project breezed through an Oct. 14 North Las Vegas Planning Commission meeting with 6-0 approval and only two citizens speaking against the proposal.

But at tonight's North Las Vegas City Council meeting, the plan to put a hotel-casino and entertainment center at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Coralie Avenue may be in for more of a fight.

Doug Thornley, who lives near the proposed complex, is organizing a protest.

"We're expecting between 150 and 200 people to come out to the meeting against the casino," Thornley said Tuesday night during an organizing rally at Swainston Middle School. "I've lived here 37 years and I know we can stop it, but what's really going to count is how many bodies we can put in that council chamber."

Displaying signs with the slogans "We don't want your craps here" and "Our neighborhood is too nice for your dice" is one of the ways Thornley and the residents will try to show NevStar and the council that they do not want a casino in their neighborhood.

Added traffic, a jump in crime rates, a drop in property values and setting a precedent that casinos may be built in neighborhoods are all concerns that residents have about the NevStar project, Thornley said.

NevStar 2000, which owns the Mesquite Star hotel-casino in Mesquite, wants to build the $140 million project about 800 feet south of the intersection of Martin Luther King and Craig Road.

If approved, the 400,000-square-foot, 35-acre project will include a 60-lane bowling center, a 12- to 18-theater movie complex, shops, a 200-room hotel and meeting rooms, NevStar officials said.

Mayor Mike Montandon attended Tuesday's meeting in full support of the residents.

"I've never sugar-coated how I feel about this project," said Montandon, who also lives close to where the casino would be built. "It's not the fact that it's in my back yard, but that this is the kind of project that threatens the Southern Nevada economy."

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission is pointing to neighborhood casinos as the root of many of the problems it associates with gaming, Montandon said.

"They aren't talking about the Strip casinos," Montandon said. "It's projects like this, where a gambling addict can go around the corner."

If tonight's vote is postponed, residents may be able to count it as a victory. That's because if the project does not pass before Dec. 31, it will become subject to state Senate Bill 208, passed by the 1997 Legislature, which puts a litany of tough new requirements on proposed neighborhood casinos.

NevStar 2000 representatives conceded that the SB 208 deadline prompted them to file a proposal earlier than planned.

The bill says that any property within 500 feet of a developed residential area or within 1,500 feet of a school or church will be prohibited from being developed as a casino.

The residential neighborhood just south of Coralie is about 300 feet from any part of the building, NevStar spokesman Mel Close said at last month's Planning Commission meeting. This puts the project 200 feet short of the distance required by the Senate bill.

"Look at the impact that Arizona Charlie's has had on the Charleston Heights neighborhood," Thornley said. "The crime rate has risen and the traffic there is horrendous. That casino also started out as an entertainment center with a bowling alley, but after a while the bowling alley was phased out for more slot machines."

Montandon told the group of about 20 organizers that he sees plans for entertainment centers without casinos all the time, and that they will come to North Las Vegas.

"When my relatives come to town and we drive down the street, they don't say, 'Oh, look, a place with a movie theater, bowling and shopping,' " Montandon said. "Even if only 1 percent of the place is gambling, they see the big bright sign and say, 'It's a casino.' "