Former Better Business Bureau director Nutter dies at 75

Monday, June 25, 2001 | 8:29 a.m.

Paul M. Nutter, who in 28 years as director of the Las Vegas Better Business Bureau took on everyone from crooked mechanics to nationwide telemarketing scammers, has died. He was 75.

Nutter, who served as head of the bureau from 1966 -- the year he came to Las Vegas -- until 1994, died June 18 in Virginia Beach, Va.

Nutter had moved to Virginia with his wife of 52 years, Janice Nixon Nutter, after they retired as co-directors of the organization. She had come aboard as a secretary months after he took the post and became his longtime co-director.

Services are planned for Thursday in Virginia Beach.

Nutter developed a reputation as a relentless champion of people who would call him with consumer complaints about businesses and organizations.

For the most part, Nutter could smell out a scam within moments of reading or hearing a complaint. He worked with law enforcement agencies to help victims try to obtain justice and restitution when they were ripped off.

Consumer fraud became more and more sophisticated. For instance, early in his career Nutter would address problems such as mechanics punching holes in radiator hoses to add a few dollars in unnecessary parts and labor to bills.

Later Nutter dealt with savvy telemarketers, many of whom were either out-of-state companies ripping off Las Vegans or firms based in Las Vegas preying on out-of-staters.

In perhaps his biggest consumer cause, Nutter uncovered a scam in which vacation certificates were being offered to out-of-state residents for rooms in first-class Las Vegas motels and hotels -- rooms that were not backed by any hotels. The work by the Better Business Bureau and State Consumer Affairs was profiled in 1981 by the ABC's television news magazine "20/20."

During Nutter's tenure, the Better Business Bureau grew from 225 members to more than 2,000. It was one of the few business bureaus in the nation not supported by taxpayer money.

Before coming to Las Vegas, Nutter served 10 years as manager of the Stockton (Calif.) Retail Merchants Association. From 1947 to 1959 he was an officer in the Navy. Nutter served as both a radioman and in naval intelligence. He was a University of Pennsylvania graduate.

Nutter served on the city of Las Vegas Licensing Board for a decade and ran unsuccessfuly in 1980 as a Republican for Assembly District 2 in the area of West Charleston Boulevard and U.S. 95. He ran on a platform seeking business regulation reforms to lessen government control that he said was "strangling" companies.

In addition to his wife, Nutter is survived by two sons, Darrow Nutter of Las Vegas and Paul Nutter of Portsmouth, Va.; a daughter, Denise Foresman of Cloudcroft, N.M.; five grandsons; and three great-grandsons. He was preceded in death by a son, Carl Nutter.