Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Pappas family plans to take its 10-year legal battle over 7,000 square feet now covered by the Fremont Street Experience garage to the U.S. Supreme Court after the state's high court rejected its appeal Monday.
The Nevada Supreme Court by a 4-2 vote sided with the city, saying the Las Vegas Downtown Redevelopment Agency was justified in condemning the property and turning it over to the Fremont Street Experience to build the garage.
Justice Nancy Becker wrote in the majority decision that the construction of the parking garage "furthers the public purpose of eliminating blight in downtown Las Vegas."
The court returned the case to District Court in Las Vegas, saying it must decide the Pappases' claim that the city interfered with their tenants and caused them to lose rent before condemnation was started.
But Harry Pappas, who with his brother John and mother, Carol, rented space to small businesses at the site, said the case will go to the U.S. Supreme Court first, to try to stop the city from using its eminent domain power to take property for another private venture in the future.
"What we hope to get here is a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that will put an end to this kind of tyranny, this kind of oppression, this kind of injustice of taking people's private property and turning it over to robber baron casinos," Pappas said. The Fremont Street Experience is a partnership of the downtown casinos.
"We're hoping this will be a landmark case," Pappas said.
William Henry, senior litigation counsel for Las Vegas, said the city was looking forward to establishing "just compensation."
"We have sought to get before a jury that would establish just compensation for the Pappases' property," Henry said. "Now that the (Nevada) Supreme Court has reinstated the complaint in the trial court we look forward to doing exactly that.
"We have always sought to be fair in this matter," Henry added. "It's a matter of public record that in negotiations we once offered the Pappases nine times the appraised value and Harry Pappas refused to accept that."
The city appraiser originally set the price at $500,000, and a condemnation suit was filed in 1993. The city's last offer on the property was about $4 million. The value of the property will ultimately be determined in District Court.
Money is not the issue, Pappas said. "My goal is to be sitting in a bulldozer with a hard hat on and knocking down that garage," he said.
In the majority opinion, Becker said as part of a larger project to revitalize downtown Las Vegas, the garage serves a public purpose, "to combat economic, social and physical blight."
Justice Myron Leavitt, in a dissent, noted that "The Pappases' property was not a slum" and said taking the property was unconstitutional.
Justice Bill Maupin, who also dissented, said the downtown redevelopment agency improperly failed to seek a formal amendment to its redevelopment plan before taking the property via condemnation.
In finding that the garage served a public purchase and the property could be condemned, the majority of the court said the garage "was not built to serve a single business but to address inadequate public parking in the downtown area and the need for new parking as visitor volume increased in response to the attraction."
The court said, "the fact that the Pappases' property itself was not blighted does not prohibit its taking through eminent domain proceedings."
Blight is not the issue for Pappas, property rights are.
"In this country your property is your own and you ought to be able to set any price you want and if the buyer doesn't like your price, they can move on," he said. "In this state they feel it's all right to take people's property to turn it over to Steve Wynn, Binions, Boyd Gaming and Jackie Gaughan."
Wynn owned the Golden Nugget at the time of the eminent domain proceeding. The Binions own the Horseshoe Club. Boyd Gaming and Gaughan own other downtown casinos.
The court also rejected the argument of the family that it should have been allowed to enter into long-term leases rather than having the property condemned.
The ruling didn't surprise Pappas, who said the family entered into the legal fight expecting to take it beyond the state's courts.
"We felt the Nevada Supreme Court, like the political system of this state, is in the pocket of the gaming industry. There was no way the political or judicial system would give you fairness and justice, so we always knew we would end up at the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "Hopefully, the gaming industry hasn't bought them off."
archive
