Resident taking a last shot at blocking casino

Kris Hill

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 12:10 p.m.

Deborah Lewis has a final card to play against Station Casinos before the gaming company builds a casino near her home in North Las Vegas.

After the North Las Vegas City Council approved a zoning change at the Craig Road Ranch golf course site last month, Lewis took her concerns to the state's Gaming Policy Committee review panel on Feb. 27.

The panel agreed to hear Lewis' appeal on Monday.

This hearing will put the attorneys at center stage, unlike previous hearings where up to 30 residents took turns at the microphone. The panel will not hear any new evidence or testimony.

Initially Station Casinos planned to build a casino at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Coralie Street, near Craig Road.

That changed when developer Shawn Lampman pitched the golf course site to Station. The company expressed reservations at first but eventually agreed, providing that approvals were forthcoming from the North Las Vegas City Council and nearby residents.

The City Council denied the project at that site but Station appealed in District Court and the City Council's decision was overturned.

Lewis says the City Council and Planning Commission misinterpreted the judge's order.

She says city officials seem to think the judge ordered a casino to be built in North Las Vegas. She thinks the judge told the city that if a casino was going to be built, it had to be on the Martin Luther King site.

Chuck Gardner, an attorney representing the residents, agrees with Lewis.

"When you look at the transcripts all the way across they all seem to think they have to allow Station to build a casino whether they like it at or not," Gardner said.

"The judge didn't tell them they had to allow a casino to be built in the city."

Lewis says she lives 2,500 feet from the golf course site, about a half mile. She says that she lives 3,700 feet from the original site.

She argues that the residents near the first site knew that area was zoned for gaming and that is the appropriate place for a casino.

Lampman disagrees that the site on Martin Luther King is better and says all of the residents' concerns have been addressed.

"I feel that everything has been covered in detail," Lampman said.

Gardner thinks that Lampman's development group, Las Vegas Gaming, however, has failed to deal with the residents' most basic worries.

"We're going to show that (the developers) didn't present the evidence necessary to the City Council that is required," he said.

Lampman said he is bewildered by the opposition.

"The City Council approved it because it's a wonderful project," he said.

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