New Clark County agency will evaluate plans for major events like the Super Bowl

First it was the Super Bowl, then Formula One’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. As the valley attracts more of these megaevents, Clark County announced today that it will create a sports and special events department to manage the influx of big spectacles.

“We’re a big (county) now, and we're going to act like a big community, we got to do things right, we got to do things safely,” Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick said at the county meeting. “This is a process, a big picture process on how our agencies and how people are to interact with us at Clark County … we’re a big county, but we host a lot of events, and we have to have a process in place.”

The ordinance, which was unanimously approved by the commission, establishes a unique division to manage special events. It also creates a process that will receive applications, collect fees, work with organizers to estimate needed county resources and maintain a calendar in relation to special events.

Before getting a special event approved, applicants must now provide various plans for the proposed location, public safety and traffic management alongside the usual basic information.

Applicants may be required to appear before commissioners for a public hearing if their event estimates more than 15,000 people; could cause “activities which endanger the health or safety of patrons or disrupt the peace or order of their neighborhood;” has multiple activations across the county; needs “significant resources” from the county; or would impact or require a closure of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Exemptions exist only for activities conducted by government agencies — including Clark County — within their scope of authority and events or associated outdoor activations held at a resort, arena, stadium or convention center that is staged by, supervised and held on the property of the licensee, said Vince Queano, director of business license at Clark County, at Tuesday’s meeting.

He added that those licensees who fit into the second category get the greenlight to contact other departments like Public Safety without the Special Event Preliminary Approval.

A postevent worksheet must also be submitted within 30 days of the special event, and the organizer’s event approval in the future could be impacted should the form be submitted incomplete or not be turned in at all.

Nevada Resorts Association President Virginia Valentine said the post-event process “adds some transparency and clarity” to the special events process.

Kirkpatrick likened the department and application process to what’s seen in cities like Los Angeles or Washington. She said she was working on getting a system in place here for special events since 2019 and consulted with contacts across the country on how best to streamline the processing of these events.

At a county meeting in March, commissioners directed staff to develop “a high-impact special events process” that would modernize operations and streamline operations for more efficient communications, Queano said Tuesday.

The direction came following a debrief from county staff on the 2023 inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, where they found issues collaborating with other departments and outside partners, submittal for business licenses postdeadline and finalizing plans.

Prior to this ordinance, special events were managed and communicated across the county’s different departments with no set process, which Kirkpatrick described as a “hodgepodge.”

The decision didn’t come without pushback from a group of employees and business owners impacted by the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which many have said left them millions of dollars in debt because of road closures.

Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, who consults a handful of businesses on and around East Flamingo Road that were affected, claimed that the ordinance doesn’t address the harm done by the Las Vegas Grand Prix on local businesses or explain how impacts could be mitigated. She also said there were no definitions for “business,” “employee,” “impact” — which can be positive or negative — or adjacent businesses and residences.

“The ordinance does not provide adequate support for small and medium-sized enterprises, which forms a substantial portion of our business landscape in the Las Vegas Resort Corridor,” Mayo-DeRiso said. “We need an ordinance that (not) only regulates but also empowers these businesses to thrive and continue contributing to our local economy for F1.”

Business owners for almost a year have been urging Formula One, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and Clark County to create some sort of remedy for the lost revenue. One of the suggestions thrown around was a county fund to support annual lost revenue for businesses as a result of the race.

Randall Jones, a lawyer speaking on behalf of Ellis Island, an off-Strip hotel objected to the motion, claiming it was “vague and ambiguous” because it doesn’t specify who stakeholders in the application process are or give the commissioners enough direction.

He argued that stakeholders should include businesses that could be affected by proposed special events and alleged that Ellis Island — which has filed a lawsuit against Formula One and Clark County for losses during the Las Vegas Grand Prix — had never been approached about how the ordinance would impact their business.

The ordinance will go into effect on Jan. 1, so the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix will not be affected by the new rules.

Commissioners insisted that this ordinance was not solely aimed at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and that they’re still working to help impacted businesses.

“You have to start somewhere, but we’re not wedded to this. This is not a constitutional amendment; this is something that can be modified, so we’re open to suggestions and modifications,” Commissioner Tick Segerblom said. “This is the bones, but we can obviously add to it going forward.”