Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Tavern owners in Las Vegas try to hang on as coronavirus curbs chip away at business

Bar Owners File Lawsuit

Steve Marcus

Steiner’s pub owner Roger Sachs is shown at the West Cheyenne Avenue location Friday, July 24, 2020. Sachs is among a group of bar owners who have sued the state.

Click to enlarge photo

Bar stools are marked with "no seating" signs at Steiner's Nevada-style Pub on West Cheyenne Avenue Friday, July 24, 2020.

Like many other Nevada bar owners, Roger Sachs is frustrated.

After being hit with state-mandated business restrictions to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Sachs, who owns three Steiner’s pub locations in Las Vegas, is burning through savings and hoping for better days.

Following a nearly 80-day closure period for nonessential businesses this spring, Gov. Steve Sisolak on July 9 announced resumed restrictions for bars in Nevada. And on Monday night, he extended the restrictions.

The order meant all bar tops at businesses in seven counties — Clark, Washoe, Elko, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon and Nye — had to close, though establishments serving food could still deliver drinks to tables. At many taverns, those same bars include lucrative video gaming machines.

Sisolak said he made the move because of an upward trend of COVID-19 cases in hotspot counties.

Citing what they view as the unfairness and unclear nature of the order, owners of more than five dozen bars in Clark County joined to file a lawsuit against Sisolak several days after the governor’s announcement.

The suit is scheduled to come before Clark County Judge Kerry Earley for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 6.

“It’s unjust to shut down bar tops and restricted gaming by basically citing Dr. (Anthony) Fauci and saying bars are the problem,” Sachs said, referring to the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

“There’s a big difference between your video poker bar in Nevada and your collegiate spring break bars in Florida. That’s the logic they’re using,” Sachs said.

While two of Sachs’ Steiner’s locations remain open because they offer food, his bar on North Buffalo Drive is closed because it didn’t make sense to “run a food and beverage operation at two locations so close together on the northwest side,” he said.

Before the pandemic, Sachs had about 125 employees. He still has close to 100, but most are working limited hours, he said.

“During the first 80-day shutdown, we basically used a lot of the money that we’d saved up over the years,” Sachs said. “We weren’t getting relief from landlords or utilities to bridge the gap. I think some of the smaller guys, who operate maybe on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis, are going to have trouble. I could probably operate like this for another 45 days, but I hope it doesn’t go that far.”

Sachs said he also received financial assistance via the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which helped. The program provides forgivable loans for businesses to cover payroll and other operating expenses.

Dennis Kennedy, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said some bar owners could ultimately be forced out of business, depending on how long the restrictions remain in effect.

“None of the bars and taverns I’m representing are part of big chains or big companies,” Kennedy said. “These are generally all mom-and-pop operations. They’re profitable enough to stay in business, but, if you keep shutting them down, they’re not going to survive. They just can’t.”

After the preliminary hearing date for the lawsuit was set, Kennedy said, some bar owners told him they might not survive until Aug. 6.

Anthony Jamison, co-owner of the Sand Dollar Lounge on Spring Mountain Road, said he doesn’t know how long he can continue to operate under the current circumstances.

“We’re about to find out,” Jamison said. The bar, which has been closed for renovations, is set to reopen on Wednesday.

The Sand Dollar, known for its live music, which has been silenced by the pandemic, is expanding its food menu and converting to restaurant-style service.

“We’re having to completely change our business model,” Jamison said. “We specialize in bands, gaming and being a bar. Right now, we can’t do any of those. With this new model, we don’t know how busy we’ll be.”

Rick Pollack, owner of the Edge of Town Bar & Grille on West Cheyenne Avenue, one of the establishments involved in the lawsuit, said he can’t survive a long-term closure.

He has been completely shut down since the governor’s latest order earlier this month.

“The uncertainly as to the future is tremendous … It’s hard to wrap my head around how the safety of my guests is at risk but 500 people drinking in a resort swimming pool doesn’t meet the health-risk criteria.”

In remarks from July 9 outlining his reasons for the enhanced bar restrictions, Sisolak said “fewer than half the bars that OSHA inspectors have visited have been found in compliance” with virus safety guidelines.

Sisolak was citing Occupational Safety and Health Administration findings from inspections done on 204 businesses — mostly bars and restaurant lounges — on July 2, according to a report from the Nevada Department of Business and Industry.

The purpose for the inspections, which were conducted in Northern and Southern Nevada, was to see how many people were complying with the state’s face-covering mandate and guidelines related to social distancing and sanitization.

Randy Miller, a longtime tavern owner in Las Vegas and one of the initiators of the lawsuit, said he doesn’t know of anyone among the plaintiff group that has been cited.

“We just want to be treated fairly,” said Miller, part of a group that owns a number of local bar brands, including Chubby’s Pub and Foothills Tavern. “We’re not talking about crowded California beach bars or college bars in Florida or Arizona, these are mostly neighborhood taverns. Just because California shuts its bars down, that doesn’t mean we have to do it.”

Miller, who has been in the bar business for more than 50 years, said he understands the difficult position Sisolak is in, but the latest restrictions “just didn’t seem to be fair to our industry.”

“We just don’t want a blanket closure like what we have now,” said Miller, whose group owns nearly a dozen taverns in Southern Nevada.

“I think the information the governor received wasn’t accurate. If we’re not in compliance, fine us or close us, but don’t do a blanket closure unless you’re going to do that with every industry. We were singled out. We were made a sacrificial lamb,” he said.