Downtown stench stirs city to action

Sito Negron

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 | 11:27 a.m.

A combination of grease, trash and urine in downtown alleys is raising a stink that Las Vegas city work crews hope to tackle with a bacteria-eating enzyme sometime next year.

That's great news to Jacquie Bundren, who works at the Pawn Place on Fourth Street.

"I walk through the alley every day. It's so bad," she said. "People sleep in the alley, dig in the trash and spread it; and they relieve themselves back there, which is really offensive in the summer."

The city manager's office about a month ago asked Lloyd Phillips' Neighborhood Services Rapid Response Team to investigate foul odors in the downtown core bounded by Carson Avenue, Main Street, Stewart Avenue and Eighth Street.

Phillips, who recently delivered a report to the Las Vegas City Council on the issue, said he drew on previous experience when checking the problem.

"We deal with removal of vagrant camps, which deals with removal of organics, the refuse that accumulates around (the homeless)," he said. "To my unscientific nose, (the odor emanating from the alleys) smells a lot the same."

Linda Lera Randle-El, a homeless advocate, was rankled a bit at the idea that the homeless were responsible for stinking up downtown alleys.

"It's a possibility," she said, that homeless people dig into trash bins and urinate in alleys. But, she pointed out, so do people leaving bars late at night, and it's common to see folks who are not homeless digging for aluminum cans.

"I understand they have a homeless problem downtown, but they can't just continue to blame the homeless for every little thing," Lera Randle-El said. "Unless Oscar Goodman and the City Council or Neighborhood Services is there checking residencies of everybody to attribute who eliminated and who didn't in what area ..."

Phillips said people putting their trash in those large bins may not always be careful that some doesn't spill and that may also be contributing to the problem.

Also some restaurants have above-ground grease containers, which are supposed to hold the waste until it's sucked into a truck for disposal elsewhere. Some of the grease may spill when it's being poured into the containers, he said.

After some research, Phillips said, he came across an enzyme that eats into odor-causing organic waste. Simply hosing down the alleys has provided some relief, but has not washed the problem away.

"This is unusual, and it involved me going to different chemical suppliers and getting their ideas and drawing on experience I had with vagrant camps, and we hit on this enzyme," Phillips said. "It's almost magic in knocking down the odor."

But it's not cheap.

"At the present time (city officials) are trying to find a way to pay for it because I don't have sufficient funds," he said. His estimate is $38,764 for a six-month trial to clean eight alleys downtown once a week.

When asked why the city does not require the shop owners to help with the bill, David Semenza, the Neighborhood Response manager for the city, said the city cannot require that, although the city will seek to partner with local merchants.

Semenza said the concern arose through city officials who were trying to sell downtown as a destination.

"We're encouraging redevelopment downtown ... if you're encouraging redevelopment you can't bring people down there and have the stink drive them away," Semenza said.

When told that city officials were concerned about the problem and were seeking a solution, Bundren, who said she hasn't had any problems with the homeless other than the fetid alleys, said, "The mayor walks past here once in a while, so maybe it was him. I'm glad they're doing something."