Sunday, July 25, 1999 | 9:31 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
SO THE EDITOR of the little paper down the street is upset that the Sun hasn't gone on a crusade lately. I am about to oblige him.
He complained -- almost bitterly last week -- when he wrote some blather about his newspaper's stance on Silver State Disposal and tried to garner reader support by suggesting that the intelligent newsapaper in town -- that's the Sun and those are my words -- was short on principle because it didn't go ballistic when a few small propane tanks exploded earlier this month at Treasure Island. His rationale for his irrational exuberance was that the Sun did go ballistic over a 30,000-gallon propane tank that was erected, practically overnight, by a cab company in town with enough political "clout" to rush the needed approvals through in just one day!
The editor, who wasn't even here almost two decades ago when the propane tank issue was heating up in Las Vegas, showed his ignorance about the subject because he got his information from Review-Journal stories which were always wrong. Had he read the Sun clips he would have known just how far-fetched his blatherings really were. I learned a long time ago that there are some people who just won't learn and who refuse to be taught. Obviously, the fellow in charge of editing what the R-J readers are supposed to read is one of those people.
But since he broached the subject of principles in the Las Vegas newspaper business and got it all wrong, I suppose I will have to set the record straight -- again.
When the Sun first alerted its readers way back in the early 1980s about a 30,000-gallon propane tank and the dangers presented by its presence in the middle of the city, the only people who didn't pay attention to the threat worked at the R-J. Everyone else took our stories seriously. That's because the experts all agreed that if that 30,000-gallon tank exploded, it would wipe out every home within a mile or so. That represented a few thousand people who did not have the wherewithal to pick up and move out of harm's way.
The other newspaper, of course, took the view that just because one of the owners of that tank was a small-time competitor of my family, there was no need to pay attention to fire chiefs and other experts who warned of the incredible dangers that the tank represented. In fact, contrary again to what the dimwits down the street would have their readers believe, the Clark County Commission ordered the tank shut down, as did the fire chief of the city of Las Vegas. It is obvious to me that the R-J editor just assumed none of his readers would have the energy to check the facts and he could get away with another lie. Makes you wonder how much attention they pay to the facts down the street, doesn't it?
In any event, the cab company finally relented and dismantled that 30,000-gallon propane tank and the threat to Las Vegans was abated. I can guarantee you that it would still be there if the other paper had its way, which was to kowtow to the cab company owner who held sway in the Nevada GOP. In fact, that same man still presents himself as some high muckety-muck in GOP circles, which probably explains the R-J's jab at the Sun. They love to curry favor in high and low circles at that little paper.
So what is the principle we were supposed to have violated? Apparently, the explosion of 10 small propane tanks -- 5 to 7 pounds each -- and the resulting fire atop two 1,000-gallon underground tanks is, in the R-J's mind, akin to the danger posed by the 30,000-gallon tank that threatened the Culinary union, the First Interstate Bank building and thousands of residents within a fireball's reach of the tank. How ridiculous!
The two buried tanks at the Treasure Island did exactly what they were designed to do when excessive heat caused the propane tanks to vent and the escaping gas to catch fire. Because they were buried, the danger was mitigated. Unlike the 30,000-gallon cab company tank, which was placed above ground and threatened residents like a waiting missile, the rules now require larger propane tanks to be buried. That was a direct result of the Sun's hell-raising about the cab owner's time bomb which he placed in the middle of the city and refused to dismantle even after he knew of the danger!
What is most curious to me about the rantings of the R-J's raving editor is his sudden desire to create a controversy where none existed. Was he just trying to pull my chain? If so, it worked. Or was he trying to do a favor for Milton Schwartz, the man who was responsible for erecting the 30,000-gallon propane tank and refusing to remove it and who is the outgoing chairman of the Clark County Republican Party -- seemingly in a position to help the R-J, I guess? If so, it is a favor Milton didn't need. That's because he remembers what the simpletons down the street have never been able to figure out.
When Schwartz sued the Sun for libel about the propane tank stories we ran he asked a Clark County jury for $305 million. They gave him the bum's rush and threw him out of court after just minutes of deliberations. We were right and he was wrong and he knew it.
This time, we are still right and the Review-Journal editor is wrong. And I am convinced he knew that, too. He just wanted to see how gullible his readers really are. That's the kind of journalistic arrogance that makes the other newspaper, with all its subscribers, well, impotent.
I do know one thing. By definition, R-J readers aren't as smart or as knowledgeable as the Sun's readers. Otherwise they wouldn't be wasting their time trying to read the unintelligible. There is good news, though. Subscribers of the other paper can change their lives and their quality of life by subscribing to a good newspaper -- the Sun. That way we can learn from one another and make this valley an even better place to live.
As for Tom Mitchell, the R-J editor gone mad, well, there's not much more we can do for him that he doesn't keep doing to himself -- every time he opens his mouth. The way I look at it, he's the R-J's problem, so why do they keep trying to make him ours?
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