LAS VEGAS — Parking was plentiful right by
the door, there was no one to wrestle with for use of the slot
machines, and Paris Hilton would not have been caught dead anywhere
near this joint.
As casino openings go, this one was underwhelming, and intentionally
so.
For eight hours on Tuesday, Station Casinos opened a nondescript
40-by-10-foot trailer on a vacant 26-acre plot about six miles
east of the Strip with just 16 slot machines. The sole purpose
was to comply with a state law that requires public gambling
to occur on a property for at least one shift every two years
in order for the landowner to retain the valuable zoning designation
needed to conduct wagering.
“It just has to be open to the public,” said Lori Nelson,
a spokeswoman for Station Casinos, which owns 16 casinos in
Nevada and one in California. “You don’t need to promote it.
You don’t need to really have people gamble here. But you do
need to have that option.”
As of midday, nobody but reporters had turned out for the
event, which had been publicized by only a few bloggers on the
Internet. The biggest payout on the bank of video poker and
blackjack machines was $2.50.
Station bought the property in 2005 and the next year demolished
the shuttered casino-hotel that had been the Showboat and, later,
the Castaways. The company has yet to come up with plans for
the land, in a deteriorating section of eastern Las Vegas where
property values are falling and crime is rampant.
The opening of the nameless temporary casino, which the local
newspaper dubbed Trailer Station, was rich in red tape, including
seven permits, approvals from the City Council and the Nevada
Gaming Control Board, and a certificate of occupancy.
As required by the city code, the trailer, brought onto the
land just for the day, came complete with a portable toilet
outside and, to comply with the Americans With Disabilities
Act, a wheelchair-accessible entrance. A casino floor manager
sat at one end of the narrow room ready to pay out winnings
should there be any, a security guard patrolled outside, and
two city zoning officers visited for 20 minutes to inspect and
fill out paperwork.
The state archivist, Guy Rocha, said he had never heard of
such an event.
“I have to admit, I’ve never witnessed it,” Mr. Rocha said.
“Nor am I aware of it.”
But Rob Woodson of the United Coin Machine Company, the slot
operator that provided the machines for the day, said: “There
are probably four or five places that have to do this in order
to preserve their grandfathered zoning rights to have nonrestricted
gaming there. That makes the property millions and millions
of dollars more valuable.”
Toward sunset, the casino closed quietly. Ms. Nelson, the
Station Casinos spokeswoman, said the company might not have
a permanent casino up on the property two years from now, either.
If not, then to comply with the once-every-24-month rule, Trailer
Station may return in early 2010.
“If we don’t break ground and start building a facility,”
she said, “yeah, we’ll be here two years from today.”
