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Slated to open this year, the Rusty Palms will not be joining the shrinking number of West Wendover businesses. file photo

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          For the first time in almost a decade the number of local West Wendover businesses fell below 100 even by the newer more generous definition of what is a local business, said West Wendover City Clerk Anna Bartlome.
    “As of today we have 97 ‘local’ businesses in town and 83 business who are located elsewhere but come here occasionally.”
    The total of 180 business licensees represent a seven percent drop from the same time last year.
    Local businesses are defined by companies that have a physical presence in West Wendover and include everything from home based businesses run part time to apartment complexes and casinos.
    “If there is an office or a building or a physical address in West Wendover it is counted as a local business,” Bartlome said. “Even if the owner or the corporate offices are located out of town. Non local business are like the Schwanns food that come to town but have no office.”
    “We had several contractors finishing up work on the new city hall that will not renew their licenses this year.” Bartlome explained.
    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 three 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. Last year it saw the closure of one of its two full service banks, Nevada Bank and Trust.
    Nine 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.

    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.
    “I would love to see the city council loosen up or rescind some of the restrictions on business,” said West Wendover Mayor Donnie Anderson. “But this current council has so far been unwilling.”
    Anderson who won a landslide victory in 2008 in part on that plat form but has been stymied on almost every occasion by the hold over city council.
    Just last year the new mayor strongly endorsed developer Steve Weinstein’s request that the city allow his project- the Rusty Palms to apply for a class one casino license without having to build a 150 room hotel.
    The council put in a 150 room hotel room minimum the year before at the behest of the Peppermill.

        Then Weinstein asked the council to either rescind the ordinance or at least extend the time between the construction of the casino property and the construction of the 150 room hotel. Weinstein explained that because of the national recession his anchor tenant had to withdraw from the venture and that no replacement business could be found.
    “I think Mr. Weinstein came more than halfway,” Anderson said in a telephone interview at the time. “All he wanted was time so he could phase in the hotel rooms. He said he was willing to pay the room taxes even if he didn’t have the rooms. That adds up to $250,000 a year to the city. Double that because those people are going to have to stay somewhere else so the city would have gotten two room taxes.”
    Despite the economic windfall Weinstein was beaten before the meeting even began.
    With the Peppermill corporation employing four of the five current councilmen Weinstein request was shot down in flames not once but twice in two consecutive meetings.
    The four Peppermill councilmen were later fined by the state ethics board but their votes were allowed to stand even after they admitted in depositions that they were specifically told by their superiors in private meetings before the vote their company did not want the ordinance rescinded and that no compromise was acceptable.
    The vote did have its desired effect, despite completing the entire building Weinstein was forced to abandon the Rusty Palms last month. It now sits empty just north of I-80.
    West Wendover loss of business appear to be Wendover, Utah’s gain in just three years the city on the other side of the state border has increased its business license roll by over 100 to 273 according to City Clerk Tamara Weyland.
    “Most are small businesses or home based,” Weyland said.