LV-area contractors disciplined by state

Thursday, May 17, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.

The Nevada State Contractors Board has revoked the licenses of six Nevada contractors and took disciplinary action against one Las Vegas contractor, accusing them of violating state construction laws.

The companies that had their licenses revoked include:

All three defendants could not be reached for comment.

Three Las Vegas companies that had their licenses revoked were Durable Designs Inc., Professional Textiles Inc. doing business as Protex; and Mirage Development Corp. They were each accused of substandard workmanship and failing to comply with notices to correct.

Durable Designs was also charged with failing to report a change of address, failure to pay for materials or services and failing to include a monetary limit on a contract. The company was also accused of abandoning a project and bidding in excess of the monetary license limit.

The defendant could not be reached for comment.

The board also accused Protex of failing to include a license number and monetary limit on a contract and charged Mirage Development with violating state building laws and failing to report a change of address.

Mirage could not be reached for comment. But Michael Lucchesi, owner of Protex, which he said is now defunct, denied the board's allegations.

"We are now defunct because of builders like Pacific Properties and other builders, which didn't pay us up to $680,000 for work done," he said. "Pacific Properties had hired an attorney to force us, after we filed bankruptcy in October, to do further repairs on a single-family home development called Images. But it's Pacific Properties' responsibility to do the repairs, not Protex's."

"We went out there with the Contractors' Board to determine what was wrong with the homes, and after investigations, the board determined we weren't responsible," he said. "The problem is in the inception of the buildings, before Protex laid tile and marble flooring in the Images homes."

"The board filed another complaint against us again because Pacific Properties must have been filing complaints against us since I've been getting calls from its attorney," Lucchesi said.

Pacific Properties could not be reached for comment on Lucchesi's allegations.

Finally, Allied Flooring Services was fined $3,500 and had a permanent letter of reprimand placed in its file after it was charged with failing to obtain a building permit, aiding or abetting and conspiring with an unlicensed contractor, entering into a contract with an unlicensed contractor and failing to include a monetary limit on a contract.

But Javier Cardona, a co-owner of Allied Flooring, denied the allegations. "I was just helping a neighbor in good faith who wanted to remodel her home. I just referred her to people who knew how to do all kinds of work. I paid those people because she was out of town at that time and was refunded money from her."