Red tape

Anyone who’s ever tried to negotiate the codes and regulations necessary to set up shop within the city limits knows it isn’t easy.

So when the city of Las Vegas decided to waive the standard $20,000 liquor license fee for people willing to open a tavern in the downtown Arts District, sisters Pam and Christina Dylag figured everything was coming up roses. The Velveteen Rabbit would be a boutique tavern named after their favorite children’s book, offering “crafted cocktails,” unique draft beers and independent music.

As allowed by code, the Dylags would like to put five slot machines in their tavern, on Main just south of Charleston.

But they hadn’t figured on the recent legal battle between major casino operators and the Dotty’s tavern chain. Because slot machines are supposedly allowed in taverns only when the slot revenue is “incidental” to tavern operation, casino owners noticed the burgeoning number of Dotty’s — slot parlors whose gesture toward food service usually amounts to a single employee providing peanuts and soda pop — and raised a hue and cry.

As a result, state regulations would appear to require an enterprise like the one planned by the Dylags — presuming they want the revenue from those five slot machines — to provide 2,000 square feet of public space and a full kitchen. “It is me and my sister. We’ve been saving our own money,” protests Pam Dylag. “There is just no way. We don’t have the extra capital to put into a kitchen.”

So the sisters and their would-be slot route operator are now applying for a waiver from the state Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission.

The regulators should grant the waiver. This is nothing like the scale of Dotty’s, and city officials are trying to encourage this type of development. The fate of the Dylags’ struggle could determine whether other taverns manage to open in the downtown Arts District.

Yet the city has offered little support. Wes Myles, who owns the Arts Factory as well as the building where the Dylag sisters want to open, says he’s disappointed city staff isn’t offering more help. “The Gaming Control Board regulations have an unintended consequence, and that is to make it tough on a lot of little people,” adds Ward 3 Councilman Bob Coffin, a former legislator.

Downtown Las Vegas has been “about to boom” for 25 years. Entrepreneurs keep trying. But try asking members of the City Council if it isn’t time to help them by taking a scythe to this thicket of regulatory red tape. They’ll look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language.