Las Vegas Mayor Still Reeling From Anti-Slot Stance

The mayor of the world’s biggest gambling mecca now admits it: She underestimated just how deeply devoted the people of Las Vegas are to their games of chance.

“You have a culture that exists here,” said Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones. “Let’s just say that there isn’t a lot of political will in Nevada to restrict gaming, and one person can’t do it.”

Jones set off bells worthy of a million-dollar jackpot earlier this year when she suggested the city consider scaling back its prized slot machines, even removing them altogether from future groceries and convenience stores. She said the money-making “one-armed bandits” had become too corrupting an influence on children constantly exposed to them in their neighborhoods.

But as the Nevada Legislature prepares to reconvene next year, Jones has set back her sights considerably, pushing instead for a more modest statewide proposal that would allow the slots to remain in stores, but in separate alcoves.

The mayor and retail and gaming associations have already agreed to a voluntary compromise within the city along those lines, including pledges to provide better ventilation to reduce secondhand smoke near the slot machines.

Jones said she believes the compromise will make it tougher for kids to get access to the slot machines, since the machines will no longer be in full view at the front of nearly every neighborhood mini-mart and grocery store. “That’s more than we had before,” she said.

But while she knew the issue would be a tough sell, she admits to misreading the community pulse. “The public in Nevada, they don’t want [gaming] changed. They don’t like something taken away. . . . I probably underestimated how they felt about it,” she said.

Many Las Vegas residents consider dropping a few dollars in the slot machines a normal part of their routine, as surely as buying a half-gallon of milk or refilling a prescription. Miles from the lights of the Strip, there are more than 2,400 slot machines in neighborhood grocery stores, mini-marts, drugstores, laundries and even a few carwashes, and the number has grown markedly in the last few years.

Early on in the debate, gaming interests made the defeat of Jones’ proposal their top priority. A newspaper poll showed the plan to be overwhelmingly unpopular. And Jones was hurt by the disclosure that she was co-landlord of a neighborhood mini-mall with two businesses that were planning to install slot machines.

The deal that Jones reached with retail and gaming interests in September, requiring the slots to be set off in store alcoves, has exposed her to harsh criticism from some quarters. A few critics have accused her of “selling out”--particularly after she earned the Democratic nomination for Nevada governor and began a run for the office that was ultimately unsuccessful.

“She dropped this like a hot potato when she ran for governor. [Gaming interests] are big contributors, after all,” said professor William Thompson, a gambling expert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“Sure, they’re going to put [the slots] off to the side a little bit, but they’re still going to be in the stores. They’re still going to be exposed to children. This is no compromise. It’s a win for the industry. It doesn’t address the problem in any major way,” he said.

The retailers and slot operators are certainly happy.

“If this helps with the quality of life by putting the machines slightly out of view, that’s a fine compromise,” said Sean Higgins, president of the Nevada Retail Gaming Assn., which represents major slot operators in the state.

Sam McMullen, lobbyist for the Retailers Assn. of Nevada, said the voluntary plan offers a more viable and realistic approach than Jones’ initial effort to ban the slots altogether in new stores--and take away a major source of revenue for the shop owners.

‘The mayor raised the issue, and she did force some discussion on it, and I think the result is pretty balanced,” he said.

McMullen’s organization is now working with Jones’ office and state officials to introduce a bill in the state Legislature in February that would take the key elements of the voluntary plan--segregating and ventilating slot areas in the stores--and put them into law statewide.

The proposed measure appears to have garnered strong support already, McMullen said. But it would apply only to new stores--not the existing ones.

“That may be too much of a wrench for us,” he said. “We have an established fabric in Nevada, and [store owners] have to be able to compete.”