The West Wendover City council turned a deaf ear to a local businessman who said the city’s planned beautification of Wendover Boulevard with landscaped islands could impact the value of his property.
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“The plan as it is now will cut down on access to my property,” said West Wendover businessman Lars Pedersen after the meeting. “I am all for beautification but it shouldn’t come at the price of restricting business. Business does after all pay the bills.”
According to Pedersen the city’s plan to put landscaped dividing islands in the center of Wendover Boulevard would hamper access to his and other commercial property on or near Wendover Boulevard the city’s main street. Pedersen also argued that the compromised offered by the city of a break in the island to allow left turns was not good enough.
“What’s wrong with a turning lane?” Pedersen asked.
Pedersen was not however to persuade the council which took no action and let the plans stand as they were.
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West Wendover saw a slight increase in the number of local businesses operating in town this year but a steep drop in the number of non-local firms more than offset any gains according to the annual business license report.
According to City Clerk Anna Bartlome there are a total of 171 businesses in West Wendover, 100 of which are local and 71 non-local. That is a 5.00 percent drop from last year total of 180. It is the lowest number of businesses ever recorded for West Wendover since even before incorporation in 1991.
In 2007 the city changed its criteria of what constituted a “local” business. Under the new criteria some businesses are considered local if they have a West Wendover address even if they are in fact owned by nonresident individuals or corporations.
All five of Wendover Casinos are considered local in the city’s new count even though their corporate headquarters are not located in Wendover. The same is true for West Wendover apartment complexes and for most of the fast food franchises.
Excluding those business from the list the number of locally owned and operated businesses falls below 60 in West Wendover an embarrassingly small number for a city with a population of about 5,000.
The dearth of private enterprise is most acute in the retail industry which apart from Smith’s Food Store is virtually nonexistent in West Wendover.
Purchases as simple as a computer printer ink, a telephone or even a coffee maker available literally in a half a dozen locations in communities of similar or even smaller sizes as Wendover, often necessitate a 240 mile round trip to Salt Lake City to the east or Elko to the west.
In the past five years West Wendover has seen a number of relatively large retailers also leave town such as Park Furniture, Bargain Barn Serendipity and Blanchard’s Furniture. Two years ago it saw the closure of one of its two full service banks, Nevada Bank and Trust. This year the closures spread to entertainment with the closure of the only non-casino restaurant and a night club.
Small retailers and home based business owners have frequently complained about West Wendover’s over regulation of private enterprise that borders to the point of harassment.
From the color of paint to a building to exactly what merchandize a store may sell often becomes an item on the city council’s agenda.
This year the council passed an ordinance requiring the finger printing and police back ground checks of new business owners coming to town.
