Coast gets two more years to decide on casino

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

Fiesta hotel-casino and Texas Station, now owned by Station Casinos Inc., could face some competition now that Coast Resorts, Inc. has been granted two more years to decide whether to build Kactus Kate's Casino just a stone's throw from the two casinos.

The North Las Vegas Planning Commission Tuesday unanimously granted Coast Resorts a two-year extension for a use permit for its proposed neighborhood casino at Rancho Drive and Carey Avenue.

The original application for Kactus Kate's Casino beat the Senate Bill 208 deadline -- also known as the neighborhood casino law -- by just a matter of days. The casino was approved by the Planning Commission Dec. 15, 1998, 17 days before the bill, which restricts gaming to established corridors, went into effect Jan. 1, 1999.

Those casinos approved before the deadline must be built by 2002.

Coast Resorts also owns the Barbary Coast, the Orleans, Gold Coast and the Suncoast.

Coast Resorts has plans to build a 102,000-square-foot casino with a 450-room hotel that would be more than 100 feet high. Construction on the North Las Vegas resort could begin by mid-2001.

"This decision (to build) has to be made this year," said Berry Lieberman, representing Coast Resorts.

Because the casino site is less than 1,000 feet from a North Las Vegas Airport runway, Coast Resorts will be required to notify the Federal Aviation Administration before moving forward with plans, according to city planners.

The Kactus Kate application is not the first neighborhood casino application to reappear from 1998.

The commission in September rejected an application by Hart Volland Enterprises to build a casino near Cheyenne Avenue and Interstate 15. The company had its permit approved before the new law went into effect, but its two-year use permit expired without construction being completed.

The commission voted against the project, saying that in the two years that had passed the site was no longer compatible for a casino. The council ultimately overturned the commission's denial last month, granting a two-year extension on a zoning change and special use permit for the casino.