Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Las Vegas might not be able to watch the Golden Knights’ Marc-André Fleury tend the net at the moment, but a save of a different type last week was worth cheering.
It came courtesy of Nevada’s congressional delegation, which pressured the Small Business Administration into dropping an obscure and ridiculous rule that blocked small gaming businesses from receiving emergency federal funding.
The move opened the door for gaming taverns and other gaming businesses with fewer than 500 employees to receive funding through the Paycheck Protection Program, which has provided $660 billion in forgivable loans through two rounds of congressional approvals. It’s critically important for Southern Nevada, where small gaming operations provide a livelihood for thousands of employees and their families.
But because of the rule, which was carried over from previous stimulus packages, businesses that earned more than a third of their revenue through gaming had been frozen out of the picture.
That came as a nasty shock throughout Nevada and among the state’s elected leaders in Washington, D.C., who justifiably believed the intent of the PPP was to include all small businesses.
Immediately, the delegation began pressuring the Trump administration to junk the rule and allow gaming businesses to come to the table. With support from the American Gaming Association and other advocates for Southern Nevada’s small casinos and gaming taverns, they argued that the rule discriminated against a perfectly legal and strictly enforced industry. They further contended, correctly, that small gaming operations are a key part of the state’s economy.
Meanwhile, the district director of the Small Business Administration’s Nevada office, Joseph Amato, was helping keep hope alive on the ground level. Working primarily with the offices of Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., Amato was relaying information on the delegation’s efforts to small businesses and encouraging them to hang in there.
The congressional leadership refused to take no for an answer, or even a partial no. When the SBA softened the rule to extend funding to businesses making 50% of their revenue from gaming, up to $1 million, Nevada’s leaders kept right on pressing.
On another front, they introduced legislation aimed at eliminating the rule if the SBA wouldn’t do it on its own.
That legislation turned out to not be necessary. On Friday, the SBA quietly replaced the rule with a new one: “A business that is otherwise eligible for a PPP Loan is not rendered ineligible due to its receipt of legal gaming revenues.”
Cue the cheers. Now, small gaming businesses and their employees have a lifeline.
“I promised Nevadans that we would get this fixed and today we made good on that promise,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., tweeted. “The Trump Admin’s attempt to prevent small gaming businesses from accessing grants and loans was foolish from the start. The employees at these small businesses can finally get some relief.”
Now, though, the challenge is to help more Nevada businesses — gaming or otherwise — get the funding they need. When the initial $350 billion in funding ran out on April 16, a paltry $2 billion of it had gone to businesses in our state.
For that, the blame lies largely in a badly flawed rollout of the program, in which private banks made the loans. Large banks were criticized for being too hesitant to extend loans to small businesses, and instead giving them exclusively to clients with outstanding loans. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., also told the Sun that small-to-medium banks — the type with whom small businesses tend to work — were not treated equitably by the national SBA in trying to obtain funding for applicants.
So there’s still a lot of work to be done.
But at least gaming businesses have a fighting chance, which they were denied before the state’s D.C. leaders swung into action.
This was a bipartisan effort for which all six members of the delegation deserve a tip of the cap — Sens. Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, and Reps. Titus, Horsford and Susie Lee, all Democrats, as well as Amodei, the lone Republican. Amato, who hit the ground running once the rule was rescinded to connect businesses to loan opportunities, also is to be commended.
Nevadans sent our congressional leaders to Washington to protect the interests of everyone in our state and fight for Nevadans being treated unfairly. In overcoming the exclusion for gaming businesses, they did both.
