The owner of a bicycle taxi service threw in the towel this week and decided not to come into Wendover after all.
“The casinos said they would charge me with trespassing,” said Salt City Cycle owner Louis Gasper. “It just wasn’t worth my time or my effort to fight them. We decided for now not to come out to Wendover and not throw good money after bad.”
Less than three weeks ago Gasper expressed frustration but was still optimistic.
“We have had some problems getting the casinos on board,” Gasper said in Late September . “They have to get the okay from corporate but we still plan to come.”
The major issue Gasper said was whether the pedicabs would be allowed to wait for fares on casino property or have to wait off property or to be called like a regular taxi.
“Whether or not the pedicabs can queue up in the casino parking lots or not is between the pedicab company and the casino,” said WWPD Lt. Don Lininger. “Most casinos on the Las Vegas Strip have taxi queues and I guess so do some hotels in Salt Lake but we never had that them in Wendover.”
“The police have been super supportive and so has the city,” Gasper added. “We will come out to Wendover even if we have to pick up fares on the street.”
The West Wendover City council changed the local law to allow for and to regulate pedicabs at Gasper’s request. And According to the Slat Lake businessman the business plan is sound.
“The casinos spend $700,000 a year operating their shuttle service and the town also supports a taxi company.” Gasper explained. “We think Whenever could easily handle a pedicab service. We were out there a couple of months ago just to check out the terrain and see if we could handle the hills. It looks great.”
That optimism turned into bitterness last week when Gasper said he was threatened with being charged with trespassing if he ran his service to Wendover.
“I paid for a new insurance policy, cost me hundreds of dollars just to indemnify the casinos,” he added. “Then after all of that they turned around and said they weren’t interested. I had hoped that the city would come to my defense but everyone is owned.’
With the pedicab service and a new liquor store set to begin construction it was hoped that West Wendover may be coming out of a more than decade long decline in the number of small businesses.
While there were signals that West Wendover could report a significant gain in the number of local business for the first time since 2003 that increase will have to wait until next year.
Last year city offices report a net gain of one business to 174. Local businesses are 103, non-local 71, according to city figures/
However with the resurgence of the gaming industry and with the prospects of the Long Canyon Mine things might be looking up for the Nevada/Utah border town.
The new liquor store will be located between the Red Garter and the Desert Discount Liquor Store on Wendover Boulevard. The pedicab service is expected to also begin operations just in August.
There could also be a new casino/hotel on the horizon with the purchase of the defunct Rusty Palms by local entrepreneur Steve Perry.
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.
While generally depressing there are some signs of green shoots. A clothing store and a discount general goods store open where the video store once operated.
A dozen years ago that West Wendover earned the title of Nevada’s fastest growing city by more than doubling its population from over 2,000 when the city incorporated in 1991 to well over 4,000 in 2001.
The economy on both sides of town should also begin to look up with the construction of the Long Canyon Gold Mine still scheduled to begin in early 2015.
Literally a mountain of gold ore lies in the once long over looked Pequop Range now in advanced exploration.
The mine has the potential to radically alter the economy and the lives of eastern Nevada, residents of Wendover and Wells. Estimated to need 500 workers during construction and 250 miners once operations are ready, the Long Canyon mine could add at least 1,000 people to the area and that may be just the tip of a gold boom in eastern Elko County.
