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February 12, 2012

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Official: Lift ban on child care in casinos

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MGM Mirage lost a $5 million convention recently.

No one blamed President Barack Obama’s remarks about frivolous travel for scaring off the desperately needed business. Rather, it appears county ordinances were to blame.

The large health convention, Cardinal Health’s Retail Business Conference, chose Denver over Las Vegas for its annual gathering next year because Clark County doesn’t allow casinos to provide temporary child care.

A growing number of conventions cater to attendees who bring their families and want child care close by, according to state Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas. Many casinos have large, permanent child-care facilities with indoor playgrounds, but these facilities are typically located on casino floors, far from convention halls.

Kirkpatrick worked during the legislative session to clarify a state regulation allowing temporary child care in Nevada casinos. But because Clark County hasn’t yet changed its ordinance to match the new state regulation, casinos are still unable to offer child care near convention floors, Kirkpatrick said.

Chris Giunchigliani

Chris Giunchigliani

Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said she is pushing to get the county ordinance amended as quickly as possible. She has asked county staff to put the matter on Tuesday’s County Commission agenda.

“It’s not unusual for us to be as progressive as possible when it comes to competition, so why weren’t we jumping at this to change it?” Giunchigliani said.

The effort, however, has been complicated by the county’s recent decision to transfer child care licensing responsibilities to the state Division of Child and Family Services. To save $500,000 annually, the county gave the state notice of the transfer in September, following in the footsteps of Las Vegas, which turned over child care licensing to the state this year.

Though the transfer won’t occur for a year, the county will begin the transition by ceasing to accept new child care license applications in four months.

Some county officials wonder whether Clark County should create an ordinance that would require a new program for casino child-care licensing when the state will assume those responsibilities in just 11 months.

Also in the mix are the state’s preparations for the transfer, which Health and Human Services spokesman Ben Kieckhefer said is “going to take a toll” on its licensing operations.

“We’ve been told some 800 conventions in six months pass through the county and though not all of those would require child-care facilities, for those that do there’s a lot of legwork involved in licensing, on-site safety inspections, investigating every complaint,” he said.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said it is “critical” for the county to resolve the issue. Jeremy Handel, the authority’s public relations manager, said the authority has been working with resorts on the matter for two years. Without the flexibility offered by a change in the county ordinance, “it translates to lost business and jobs.”

Yvette Monet, a spokeswoman for MGM Mirage, also stressed the importance of making the change.

“While we completely understand the pressure on state and local budgets, the inability of government to respond to the needs of our guests costs local businesses and government millions of dollars in revenues and taxes,” she said. “Las Vegas becomes less competitive for major pieces of convention business when we cannot provide these services.”

Cardinal Health is one convention that took its business elsewhere. The estimated loss to the local economy from its move to Denver in 2010 is more than $5 million.

Tara Schumacher, spokeswoman for Cardinal Health, said many people who attend its conventions “bring their entire families,” so child-care services to them are “a really important component of our site selection.”

Giunchigliani said her frustration with the delay in changing the county ordinance has grown as she has learned of conventions that were lost amid the recession.

“I’ve heard (the county) doesn’t want to do it now because it’s not our business; it’s the state’s,” Giunchigliani said. “We should be doing it because it’s the right policy, whether it’s our business or not.

“If something like this brings us even one more convention, then it’s worth it.”

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