Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: More than a merchant

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002 | 8:42 a.m.

I know that's what he does for a living. In fact, Larry is probably the most successful wine and liquor wholesaler in the country. He took a company practically from scratch almost a quarter century ago and made it the envy of his industry. There are few in his line of work who wouldn't admit to a bit of professional envy because of his success with Southern Wines and Spirits, a company that has statewide reach.

I mention this because I have known Larry for almost half a century -- there's a thought to ponder -- and during that entire time, while I have heard him referred to as the wine and liquor guy, it has been merely to describe what he does and not who he is. That line has been blurred recently because my friend Larry has gotten himself mixed up in a human hornet's nest, one in which the stings are designed to provide everlasting pain.

Most Las Vegans couldn't care less about what happens in the rarefied air of a ritzy Lake Tahoe residential community. Ask us to vote for bond issues to clean up the lake and we are there. Ask us to support measures that will keep the lake as pristine as possible -- given the penchant of 21st century man to destroy most of what is beautiful around us -- and we are there. But ask us to pay attention to a fight between rich people that has no effect on us whatsoever, and we are nowhere close to there.

That just about sums up the fine mess Larry Ruvo has gotten himself into at his beautiful summer home in the upscale Glenbrook Community. That mess, for any number of reasons, has been played up on the front pages of Nevada's newspapers for the past few years giving Nevadans a modern day taste of a Hatfield and McCoy type feud. This one, though, is getting out of hand. I know that because Larry is being portrayed as a bad guy and that, my friends, he ain't.

Nobody ever handed Larry Ruvo anything. His successes -- which are many and varied both in business and in his personal life -- have come from hard work, determination and an attitude that does not allow for the word "quit." And, unlike some materially successful people, Larry has never forgotten where he came from, a quality that endures him to all who know him.

Every once in a while a story appears in the newspaper about Larry's ongoing fight with his neighbors over a pier he wants to build near his home on Lake Tahoe. I suspect very few people pay attention because it sounds like a bunch of wealthy folks fighting with one another over an issue that holds little or no interest. That part is true but behind the story are some real people with families and feelings that can get trampled along with a measure of decency if we are not careful.

In Ruvo's case, he has been relegated to "rich liquor merchant" by his detractors who can't seem to beat him any other way than in the court of public opinion. The problem with that tactic, however, is that the people who are making the big to-do over Larry's pier are, for the most part, folks who have moved to Nevada to avoid taxes in their home states -- hardly an example of clean-handed combatants wouldn't you say. I don't know those people, but I would match Larry's community efforts against theirs -- all of them -- any day.

There is hardly, for example, a charity in this town that hasn't benefited from Larry's largesse. Whether it is providing the wine for their dinners or a check for their good works, Ruvo is among the very first to step up. If a church needs to get built and has everything it needs other than the funds, Larry is there with a check. If there are kids in need of help -- regardless of the help needed -- just give Ruvo a call and it is done.

When the governor's mansion was badly in need of repairs and a veritable eyesore and embarrassment, who do you think started the move to raise the money to make it livable for Nevada's first couple and lovable for all who came to visit? You guessed it. Not only did Ruvo write checks but he organized his friends and associates to do the same. He did all this without regard to who would live there, knowing only that it was not right for Nevada's governor to live in a house that could fall down at any moment.

If there is one effort, though, for which Larry Ruvo is best known it is his untiring work in search of a cure for Alzheimer's. I remember when his father, Lou, was first diagnosed with that awful disease. It was like a ton of bricks falling on Larry's head. It was not unlike, I am sure, the feeling many Nevadans get when confronted with similar news. He left no stone unturned in his quest to help his father, and there was nothing he could not and did not do to make his dad's life as qualitatively comfortable as possible. When the end came, Larry mourned as any good son would do, and then he went to work. Not selling liquor but to create the ways and means for Nevadans to get into the fight to find the cure of that dreaded disease.

He joined with friends who also had been affected by Alzheimer's and, together, they started an annual affair that has raised millions of dollars in just a few years to help find a cure. It is a good thing that my friend has been fortunate in his business pursuits because it has allowed him to pour untold amounts of money into Alzheimer's research and almost every other worthy cause you can name. I wonder how many of the millionaires hiding out at Lake Tahoe can come close to matching Larry's record for giving back to his community.

So, good readers, when you see a story from Lake Tahoe defining Larry Ruvo as a "rich liquor merchant" remember that is only what he does. And, even though he does that better than almost any other, it is a far cry from who he really is.

What he really is, is a friend. And to Nevadans in need, he is a best friend.