Bottoms up for beloved bar?

Friday, June 22, 2007 | 8:56 a.m.

The Stagecoach Saloon is the type of place where the Jim Beam rarely finds its home next to other liquor bottles.

That's because it gets poured too often as the barmaids dance to "Sweet Home Alabama" and men drinking Bud at 4 p.m. challenge each other to games of pool.

There are no plasma screens in the Stagecoach, just a pair of normal TVs that get less attention than the pinball machine or the dart board.

And it's hot. Not happening hot, just hot. The Boulder City bar has no air conditioning. No worries, though - they leave the doors open and have a swamp cooler.

Soon, though, the Stagecoach might not have a building.

The 40-year-old biker bar is in danger of being ridden off into the sunset. If that happens, the Stagecoach would just be the latest local business in the small city to shut its doors.

The longtime Nevada Drug closed this year, and its owners now run their pharmacy out of a supermarket. In the past three years Boulder City also lost a locally run office supply store.

In a city where residents once pooled their money to buy land where McDonald's wanted to build, these are big losses that chip away at Boulder City's history and vintage atmosphere.

While its neighbors in Las Vegas have no qualms about blowing up buildings that have been in existence for only a few decades to make way for the next big thing, a photo of Boulder City from the 1930s looks remarkably similar to the present. Many of the businesses downtown are in buildings that date to the days when Hoover Dam workers were the first settlers.

For more than 70 years the city has held on to its quaintness and conservative values. It remains the only place in Nevada where gambling is illegal, and until the late 1960s, the bars served only near-beer and low-alcohol wine.

But slowly the older buildings are being whittled away and on U.S. 93 fast-food restaurants dominate the scenery. With the buildings goes some of the charm that makes Boulder City special among the fast-growth, big-box suburban development that dominates the region.

Aside from the Stagecoach, the only other tavern in the city of 15,000 people is The Backstop on Avenue B.

That bar, originally Laubach's Recreation Tavern, has been serving 'em up since 1932. It is now for sale, meaning Boulder City folks looking for a wobbly pop soon may have to seek out new options.

The bars in limbo have prompted discussion about revising the city's liquor laws to allow more locations for taverns. The change could allow the Stagecoach to move downtown - perhaps into the vacant Nevada Drug building on Arizona Street.

But it would be tough to move the Stagecoach's ugly wallpaper or dirty floors, undeniable parts of its ambience. To survive, though, the Stagecoach might have no choice but to leave that behind.

A recent building inspection found more than 20 code violations ranging from the lack of fire alarms and emergency lighting to foundation damage and exposed wiring.

"I am not going to condemn this property," said Ron Nybo, city building official. "But it is condemnable."

Ironically, the Stagecoach was offered $63,000 in redevelopment funds last year. But the building's owner, Charles Terry, who lives in California, decided not to take the grant, which would have required him to invest some of his own money, too.

While Terry owns the building, the Stagecoach is owned by Jona Griffin, a 32-year-old Boulder City native.

Dennis McBride, curator at the Boulder City/Hoover Dam History Museum, hesitates to call the Stagecoach historic. Yet its back bar, built in the late 19th century, has been in Boulder City since 1951, when it was at the Boulder Lounge on Wyoming Street.

In 1967 it was moved to 1200 Nevada Way and became part of the Stagecoach. Two years later alcohol was legalized in the city. And today, there's a bullet hole in the wood.

If nothing else, the Stagecoach is a local landmark. The building, with a busted wagon wheel on its roof, is unique to Boulder City. As is the clientele.

"I don't even want to think about it," Jay Gerfen, a regular, said of the possible closing. "I'd feel homeless." Another guy in a cowboy hat said: "Guys like me don't think that far ahead."

Griffin is not sure what she's going to do if the building either falls down or is knocked down.

It's a thought that makes her take a drag off her Marlboro Light and try to conjure up a plan.

She hopes the building is not condemned, a scenario that would solve her problems. But she also could move or close, neither of which appeals to her.

For now, at least, the domestic beers will be cold at the Stagecoach.

And the Jim Beam won't be difficult to get to for those who call the Stagecoach a home away from home.

"You can just be yourself," Griffin said. "You can have fun. It's so rare to find a place like this. You're just a number everywhere else."