Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Metro starts enforcing shutdown of nonessential businesses

Lombardo will be giving his annual State of Metro speech

Steve Marcus

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo delivers his annual State of Department address at the Smith Center Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.

Metro Police on Saturday began enforcing Gov. Steve Sisolak’s order that nonessential businesses temporarily shut down in an effort to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Although Sisolak gave the formal statewide order on Friday, he left it up to local governments to adopt their own enforcement. The Clark County Commission convened for an emergency meeting a few hours later, delegating the authority to Metro through an ordinance.

The ordinance only applies to unincorporated Clark County, but Las Vegas officials on Twitter this morning said that the city falls under Metro’s jurisdiction, and that the City Council would meet next week to have “more solidified” legal enforcement actions.

Sisolak’s order, originally given Tuesday, states that nonessential businesses, such as bars, cinemas, casinos, salons, and dine-in restaurants shut their doors until April 16. But some businesses defied the order, and Metro had said it couldn’t enforce the informal directive without an executive order.

Sisolak delivered the order Friday afternoon, and Clark County Commissioners solidified it through an ordinance. It wasn’t immediately clear how Henderson and North Las Vegas planned to enforce Sisolak’s order, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office said late Friday that its deputies were given authority to close the nonessential businesses, and cite or charge those who defy the order with possible misdemeanors and felonies.

Metro said plainclothes detectives with its special investigations unit would show up and hand the business operator a copy of Sisolak’s order. The operator would sign a letter from Metro acknowledging they received notification and were out of compliance.

Officers would standby as the businesses shut their doors, police said. At least in unincorporated Clark County, defying the order could lead to gross misdemeanor charges for endangering public safety and fines of $1,000 per violation, per day.

“If a business owner believes they are essential, they can make an appeal to the city or county business license,” Metro said in a news release.

The detectives have been responding to reports taken at the 311 line.