Dotty’s in Las Vegas says a competitor’s lobbying efforts has caused city officials to delay its decision regarding a permanent restricted gaming license for one of its stores.
Nevada Restaurant Services, doing business as Dotty’s, accuses the city of Las Vegas and its City Council of civil rights violations in a federal complaint filed November 25, the same date its temporary restricted license expired.
The City Council on November 18 gave only partial approval to Dotty’s application for a permanent restricted gaming license at its newest store in Las Vegas.
Dotty’s wanted 15 games for the location, which is what the city approved for its other operations in Las Vegas, but opponents say Dotty’s takes advantage of local laws that require gaming to be a secondary source of income, but accounts for more than half of Dotty’s revenues at its Las Vegas locations.
In its lawsuit, Dotty’s says Station Casinos and its attorney lobbied city officials to delay or deny the city council’s decision on Dotty’s application for a permanent restricted gaming license for its new store in Summerlin.
Dotty’s currently has restricted gaming licenses for 15 establishments in Nevada and sought a restricted license to operate 15 gaming machines at its new store, which it opened on March 9 and is located at the intersection of Hualapai and West Sahara Avenue in Summerlin. The city granted it a license for only 7 machines.
Dotty’s said it already obtained approval from state approval for its license and spent $700,000 renovating the store in anticipation of the city approving its application to run the same gaming operation that Dotty’s operates at its 15 other locations.
But Dotty’s says it “learned that representatives for Station Casinos had been lobbying council members” and that Station Casinos’ attorney, Todd Bice, in an April 15 letter to the City Attorney Bradford Jerbic, “made a number of misrepresentations about Dotty’s and its alleged, but factually unsupported, ‘noncompliance’ with the City Code.”
Dotty’s accuses the city of civil rights violations and seeks a judicial review of the city’s decision and wants the federal court to enjoin the city from enforcing the restricted gaming license for only seven machines and to allow Dotty’s to continue operating 15 machines at its new Summerlin store.
