Street photo of 2nd Street Reno in 1950, with Club Cal-Neva

In a likely unprecedented event, with all of the necessary equipment on hand, demonstrations of how a local casino operated its race horse keno game were provided to the judge and jury in a Reno, Nevada courtroom in 1950.

These presentations were part of the defense strategy during the three-day February trial regarding the civil court case, Leon Pierce v. Club Cal Neva.

Hedging His Bets

In his suit and when testifying in court, Reno resident and sporting goods store worker Leon Pierce alleged that the Club Cal Neva casino owed and refused to pay him $5,000 (about $60,000 today) for a winning race horse keno ticket he played in January 1949. Pierce claimed that the 10 horse numbers he chose to be winners, on a $1 ten-spot ticket, actually were. Pierce was the only witness for his side.

(A similar case involving plain, not race horse, keno would happen a decade later at the Nevada Club in Las Vegas.)

Going for the Win

The Club Cal Neva and its defense team sought to prove that Pierce’s keno ticket had been filled out after the winning race was called. They alleged that Pierce’s ticket had been for race number 126, as shown by his receipt, but the winning race had been 127. For some reason, his marked ticket was in the pile of tickets for 127 not 126. Because Pierce’s ticket was for a non-winning race, the casino didn’t owe him any payout, its attorneys argued.

To help jury members understand, Club Cal Neva casino manager Samuel “Sam” A. Boyd* explained the bookkeeping and other operations of race horse keno, using the game implements brought into the courtroom for this very purpose. He showed how tickets were written and payoffs were made.

He said the ticket mixup could’ve been the dealer’s fault or an incidence of Pierce “capping the book.” If the latter, Pierce likely distracted the dealer and slipped a blank race 126 ticket on top of the blank tickets for race 127 then asked him to write a ticket for him. The dealer grabbed and filled out the top ticket.

The Double Whammy

The defense presented two additional witnesses. The first was Emmet Shea, a former, local race horse keno writer now living in Montana. Shea testified that when he’d worked at Harolds Club previously, Pierce had asked him two different times whether he’d be willing to collude with Pierce to produce a winning ticket.

“I told him he was nuts,” Shea testified (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 17, 1950).

Shea added that some time after that, when he’d managed keno for the defendant, he’d instructed his writers to ban Pierce from the game.

Next up on the stand was Rudy Stanch, a current Club Cal Neva employee. He said that in July 1949 Pierce had offered him $200 to testify in court that his employer had operated keno illegally. Stanch said he’d refused.

On cross-examination, Pierce denied all of the witnesses’ allegations. He didn’t know how his ticket wound up in the wrong pile, he said.

Out of Luck

The jury, comprised of seven women and five men, deliberated the case for about two hours.

The verdict was in favor of the Club Cal Neva. Ten jurors voted for the casino, one voted for Pierce and another voted for neither side (civil suits didn’t require a unanimous jury vote).

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What do you think about this case? Did Pierce have a legitimate claim or was he trying to scam the casino?

* Sam Boyd went on to co-found Boyd Gaming and grow it into one of the world’s largest gambling empires. The stadium at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is named in Boyd’s honor.

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Gambling and cheating at gambling go together like, well, coins in a slot machine or cards in a shoe. Seemingly, they always will despite various efforts — violence, laws/rules, surveillance, firings, procedures, technology and more — to thwart chicanery.

“The casino gambling business is especially susceptible to fraudulent schemes,” wrote Jerome Skolnick in House of Cards.

An Incongruous Trend

During the 17 years between 1931 and 1948, only four convictions on cheating charges were reported in the newspapers in Northern Nevada, and two of them were connected in a single case involving one club. This is despite cheating, by both players and operators/dealers, reportedly being rampant.

What It Means

One of the takeaways from this datum is that no amount or type of deterrents will stop people entirely from trying to cheat. “Operating a cheating and thieving gambling game,”* a gross misdemeanor, continued despite a substantial maximum punishment for it: a year in county jail plus a $1,000 fine (equivalent to about $17,000 today).

Also, the low conviction number suggests that prosecuting gambling cheating cases rarely were successful. Oftentimes, initial charges got reduced or dropped. Reduced charges often bore “little resemblance to the cheating one” and may have culminated in “a plea of guilty to disturbing the peace,” a state gambling official later would tell the Nevada State Journal (Aug. 22, 1968).

Further, the statistic highlights the common trend of gaming house operators managing  swindlers themselves, in their own ways, with severe beatings, breaking of bones, even shootings. Of the four successfully tried cases in Washoe County, one incident was reported by a club owner and involved cheating the house. Another was reported by a customer, and the remaining set was discovered by Reno police deputies; those involved cheating the customers.

One reason for meting out “justice” in-house perhaps was the gaming club owners/operators not wanting to risk jeopardizing their gambling license. If a charge of cheating at their business was substantiated, they could have gotten their license revoked for a year and, consequently, been unable to legally offer any games of chance. Once the 12 months were over, they’d have to apply for a new license, with no guarantee of being granted one.

Cases In Point

Here are the four cheating cases that, atypically, were addressed in and resolved through the legal system. 

1) 1939: George “Shorty” M. King, 49, and 2) George “Shorty” L. Coppersmith, 53, gambling operators at The Dog House at 130 N. Center St. in Reno

The two Shorties had leased the gambling concessions at the Dog House for four years. Previously, they’d co-owned the Tavern and at different times from each other, had a percentage interest in the Capitol Bar.

On the night of July 4, 1939, after two Reno chief deputies witnessed both dealers manipulating the roulette wheel, they left, returned when the cabaret was less busy and raided it. They dissembled the wheel right then and there and called in an electrician. He “traced connections from electromagnets in the rim of the wheel to push buttons along the edge of the table and a series of dry batteries concealed in a large foot rail under the table,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 6, 1939).

One switch was hidden in the wooden backstop of the wheel’s large money drawer. To activate it, one simply pushed on the drawer. The other button was concealed under a faux screw head on an edge railing of the wheel’s table. Using those electric controls, the operators could make the steel-cored ball fall within certain groups of numbers on the wheel.

Further, the technician noted the batteries hidden in the metal rail had to have been put there within the previous two months because they had May 1940 on them and batteries generally were dated one year ahead.

King and Coppersmith were arrested and each assigned bail of $1,000 (about $18,000 today). The Dog House owners, Al Hoffman and Phil Curti, along with John Petricciani, then Reno’s Palace Club owner/operator, paid King’s bail in cash; Felix Turillas, then owner of Reno’s Silver Slipper and Northern Club, paid Coppersmith’s by check.

Why did Petricciani and Turillas chip in for the Shorties’ bail?

Ultimately, King and Coppersmith both were fined $1,000, but King also received a six-month jail sentence because he was listed on the gambling license as the wheel’s owner.

“The incident ended both men’s gaming careers in Nevada,” wrote author Dwayne Kling.

Hoffman and Curti claimed they hadn’t known a crooked wheel was being used in their club.

“The two men operated the crap table and the roulette wheel,” Hoffman said, referring to King and Coppersmith, “and the management got one-third of the profits. We didn’t have anything to do with installing the machine, or its operation” (Nevada State Journal, July 6, 1939).

Despite Hoffman’s denial, District Attorney Ernest Brown recommended that all gambling licenses pertaining to The Dog House be revoked, which required a unanimous vote by the county commissioners, but they didn’t pursue it.

3) 1943: Alfred Leo Rooney, 38, a 21 dealer at an unnamed club in Reno

The establishment’s owner reported to police that at his business, he’d caught Rooney, an employee, cheating while dealing 21. One of the game’s players was Rooney’s co-conspirator, who was interpreting the cards’ marks and winning … frequently. “The police allege that there was to have been a division of winnings between Rooney and the confederate,” the Reno Evening Gazette reported (Jan. 28, 1943). When police arrested Rooney, he claimed he was innocent.

Justice of the Peace Harry Dunseath held him over for trial and set his bail at $2,000 (about $30,000 today).

After deliberating less than an hour, the jury found Rooney guilty. Judge A.J. Maestretti sentenced him to six months in jail, no fine.

4) 1948: Clifford Sikes, 51, a 21 dealer at Dutch Garden** at 565 W. Moana Lane in Reno

Sikes had worked for 16 years as a dealer, at the Stag Inn, Cedars and Moana Springs Bar, before his stint at Dutch Garden.

On March 5, 1948, Sikes was dealing 21 to a table of men who all were friends, among them a Milton Brown. After Brown lost $25 (about $265 today) in about 15 minutes, another friend, Louis Ostanoski, who’d been watching the game, told Brown the cards were marked. To prove it, Ostanoski correctly guessed Brown’s cards without seeing them.

Sikes overheard the conversation and said he’d switch decks. He put the deck he’d been using in a drawer and started to unwrap a new one. Brown stepped around the table, retrieved the previous deck, fanned it out on the table and pointed to the marks — indentations in the corners of the eight cards. Sikes grabbed what cards he could and tore them up, but Brown pocketed the rest. Dutch Garden owner Fred Stengler offered to refund Brown the $25, but he declined.

Subsequently, Brown filed a complaint with the police and turned over to them, as evidence, the marked cards he’d retrieved. Sikes was charged with operating a crooked card game using a marked deck.

Sikes paid and was freed on $1,000 bail (about $11,000 today). On the stand at his trial, he denied knowingly having dealt marked cards. Sikes implied that the customers had marked the cards not him. He said he’d torn up the cards only because Brown had been mixing the old deck with the new. Stengler testified on his behalf.

Despite the defense put forward, the jury found Sikes guilty, in fewer than 15 minutes. Maestretti sentenced him to a $1,000 fine and six months’ jail time.

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* When The Silver State legalized wide-open gambling in 1931, it addressed cheating in that new law. It read, in part: “The use of marked cards, loaded dice, plugged or tampered-with machines or devices are expressly made unlawful.”

** The former Dutch Garden building today houses On Command 2, a pet boarding center, and previously was the Yen Ching Chinese restaurant site.

Sources

Bones Remmer

An unpleasant, self-described “big gun,” Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer was “once one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s flashiest and most successful gambling czars,” having owned numerous clubs in which he offered illegal games of chance, noted the Oakland Tribune (June 12, 1963). Before solely working in Northern California, Remmer worked in Northern Nevada for the Wingfield syndicate, the local Mobsters who then controlled gambling there.

He likely is most associated with his Menlo Club in San Francisco, which he operated during the 1940s, and the Cal-Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe in Crystal Bay, Nevada, which he ran in the 1930s in association with the Wingfield Syndicate. He also owned, during the 1940s, the 21 Club in El Cerrito, the Oaks Club in Emeryville, and the 110 Eddy and B&R Smokeshop in San Francisco — all in California.

Here are 10 true tidbits about Remmer:

1) He was shafted by “It Girl,” actress Clara Bow in September 1930, when she stopped payment on three checks totaling $13,900 (about $198,000 today), which were meant to cover the gambling debt she’d racked up at the Cal-Neva Lodge. (This was even after he’d gifted her with a bottle of whiskey when she’d arrived at the property.)

2) His wife divorced him the following month on grounds of physical and other cruelty. She claimed she’d given Remmer $15,000 ($220,000 today) to buy into the Cal-Neva Lodge and quoted him as telling her, “I got so much publicity out of Clara Bow’s bum checks that now I know everyone and am hobnobbing with the elite. You’re no help to me now — just a detriment.” In the divorce settlement, Remmer had to pay her $15,000 ($270,000 today) in cash and $150 ($2,700 today) per month as alimony.

3) Remmer freely paid off state and local politicians to ignore his illegal gambling operations in the Golden State’s Bay Area. For one, he donated $170,000 ($1.9 million today) in campaign contributions to California Attorney General Frederick “Fred” N. Howser.

4) He was arrested and charged with intoxication, along with three others, following a drunken fight in the Encore bar-restaurant in West Hollywood one early morning in December 1950. The other brawlers were Edmund M. Scribner, a Bakersfield gambler who’d worked for Remmer before; Thomas J. Whalen, St. Louis gambler, and his companion, actress Vici Raaf.

5) While in police custody following the melee, he was served by federal agents with a subpoena, which he’d been dodging, to testify at the upcoming Kefauver Committee hearing. During the hearing in 1951, Remmer couldn’t be found, as he allegedly was waiting it out in Mexico, and never testified. One that threat was gone, he returned to Northern California.

6) Remmer went to trial twice, in 1948 and 1949, in San Francisco for operating illegal gambling houses and using business fronts to do so. Both cases ended in hung juries.

7) Jury tampering was alleged during Remmer’s first tax evasion trial in 1951-1952. An outsider, who claimed to know Remmer, approached and suggested to one of the jurors he make a deal with Remmer, insinuating Remmer would pay for a vote in his favor. The juror refused and notified the judge. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated but concluded nothing untoward had occurred. Ultimately, on appeal, the conviction of Remmer stood, and no charges against the reported interloper were pursued.

8) He was found guilty of federal tax evasion in 1952, but the appeals court ordered a retrial because of the alleged jury tampering. Tried again in 1958, he was found guilty a second time, and the higher court upheld the decision. He was sentenced to a $20,000 fine (about $185,000 today) and five years in prison. He served 2.5 of those, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island in San Pedro, California, getting paroled in 1961.

9) He had money problems later in life. Before prison, Remmer paid the requisite pieces of casino income to various mob bigwigs, including Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, New York mobster; Johnny Rosselli, member of the Chicago Outfit; and Jimmy Lanza, head of the San Francisco crime family. Remmer also freely gave money to various local and state politicians. After paying the Internal Revenue Service his tax arrears of $63,000 (about $530,000 today), finances were tight. After prison, he sold cars, until his death four years later, for his brother William Remmer, who co-owned a lot in Oakland, California.

10) Nicknamed “Bones” as a joke because of his fluctuating, 225- to 300-pound size, he is said to have struggled, all of his adult life at least, with an endocrine disorder. Remmer passed away after “undergoing treatment following surgery for a glandular ailment” at age 65 in 1963 (San Mateo Times, June 12, 1963).

Sources

McGill Club in later years

1928

A woman named Gladys Anderson sued the McGill Club in McGill, Nevada for $5,000. It was the amount she claimed her husband had lost there playing poker.

The district court, however, dismissed her case because it lacked a cause of action (a set of facts sufficient to justify a right to sue and receive compensation from another party).

Ernest J. Primm, casino mogul

1956-1959

A thief absconded with $2,000 (about $17,500 today) from the Club Primadonna casino in Reno, Nevada on the first Friday of May 1956.

The missing 10,000 dimes, 2,000 quarters and 1,000 half-dollars, the reserve fund for the club’s slot machines, were taken from a wooden cabinet in the basement. Only two employees had keys to that room.

One of them, Thomas Knaub, seven months later, sued the owner of that Reno, Nevada club, Ernest J. Primm, alleging he’d made false public statements that Knaub had been involved in the robbery. Knaub, no longer in his employ, claimed Primm’s alleged slander of him had prevented him from landing a job.

Therefore, he sought $75,000 in general damages, $25,000 in punitive damages and $2,135 for lost wages — a total of $120,000 ($834,000 today).

The jury trial began three years later in June 1959. The first witness called, Primm, denied ever accusing Knaub of participating in the theft or telling other casino owners Knaub had taken part in it.

“I have never been contacted by one single establishment about Mr. Knaub,” he said. “I have never contacted any establishment about him.” Primm said he didn’t know who took the money, “and I still don’t know” (Nevada State Journal, June 16, 1959).

He added, however, he knew Knaub gambled in the local casinos. “I know one thing. A man that goes around town gambling and puts I.O.U.’s in doesn’t deserve a job,” Primm added.

The former assistant office manager, Margaret Stanley, next testified that in Knaub’s job as a Primadonna club cashier, he counted the cash every morning, made bank deposits and co-signed payroll checks. She said once he’d found and pointed out a $1,000 error in the bank deposit.

When Knaub’s attorney was about to question Stanley about a conversation she’d overhead in the past between Primm and another employee, Marjorie Standlee, the defense objected on the grounds that such conversations are confidential. The judge agreed, and Stanley’s testimony—the crux of Knaub’s case, per his attorney — was cut short.

Two days later, the judge, A.J. Maestretti, dismissed the suit because the plaintiff had failed to present a sufficient case.

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Greg Primm

Elliot Paul Price

1970-1973

When federal agents arrested Elliot Paul Price, 51, during a massive multi-city raid in 1970 and charged him with illegally transmitting race wire information across state lines via telephone, two dominos fell:

• He lost his job as a casino host at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

• The Clark County Sheriff’s Office pulled his work card, which is required for casino employment.

In April 1971, however, the sheriff’s department issued him a temporary permit to work in a similar position at Circus Circus. Within the week, though, the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) voted to pull it due to his being under federal indictment and allegedly having an unsavory background. On the NGC’s orders, the sheriff’s office revoked his card, leaving Price again unemployed.

Price Won’t Take No

Unable to obtain a casino job, he filed a lawsuit, but it went nowhere because, according to the judge, he hadn’t pursued all possible avenues for re-obtaining his employment permit.

Price asked the NGC and the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) to reinstate it, but they didn’t. This was because, in a hearing on the issue, he refused to answer questions about his suspected association with underworld individuals. Price hailed from Boston and gambling regulators believed he was entrenched in the Mafia there.

Lawsuit, Take Two

At the start of 1972, with Oscar Goodman as his attorney, Price sued Nevada Governor Mike O’Callaghan and the NGC, claiming the latter had rescinded his work card arbitrarily. The suit purported the agency’s decision hadn’t been based on established guidelines but, rather, on unrelated “charts of the Mafia, ancient newspaper articles, dime store novels, and secret and confidential information” (Nevada State Journal, June 13, 1972). It also asserted the NGCB hearings had violated his freedom of association right and forced him to be a witness against himself.

Goodman requested the withdrawal of Price’s work card be deemed unconstitutional and a temporary restraining order (TRO) be placed against the gambling regulating agencies, preventing them from interfering with his obtaining a new one.

The state, on the other hand, argued that were the court to afford the TRO until the issue got resolved legally, it would be substituting its judgment for that of Nevada in a state administrative matter. Also, were Price to prevail, it “could well emasculate the total regulatory concept of gaming” (Reno Evening Gazette, June 13, 1972).

District Court Judge Howard Babcock granted Price the TRO.

Nevada Fights Back

The NGCB responded with a suit of its own to overturn Babcock’s action on the grounds that the local court lacked jurisdiction in the matter. The NGC and NGCB conceded Price could work in a non-casino job at Las Vegas’ Riviera hotel.

District Court Judge Carl Christensen denied the State of Nevada’s motion to dissolve the TRO. This meant Price could return to his casino host post at Circus Circus until the high court weighed in.

Off To Higher Court Land

Next, Goodman took the case to the Nevada Supreme Court, asking it to allow Price to regain his work card, thereby protecting his constitutional right to due process.

Deputy Attorney General David Polley, for the state, argued that upholding Babcock’s ruling would “set a dangerous precedent which would be detrimental to the inhabitants of Nevada and their major industry” (Nevada State Journal, June 13, 1972).

Resolution Three Years Later

In 1973 the Nevada Supreme Court delivered the opinion that, yes, the lower, or district, court had jurisdiction to rule upon the validity of Price’s right to work in gaming.

In other words, Goodman and Price* won the legal fight. Their doing so established that Nevada couldn’t deprive someone of their work card without due process. Subsequently, Clark County instituted processes for suspending or revoking a work identification card and for an appeal by the card holder.

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* In 1979, Price would be indicted for multistate race fixing along with other members of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang, James “Whitey” Bulger’s associates, for which he would serve two months. Subsequently, he would disappear, never to be heard from again.

Sources

1969-1971

Patron Alvin Glasky sat in the Stardust hotel-casino’s showroom in Las Vegas, Nevada, watching Lido de Paris on a Saturday evening in 1969. As one of the topless showgirls was being lowered from the ceiling over the crowd, she fell off the platform and landed on him.

Two years later, Glasky filed a lawsuit, seeking $403,700 (about $2.5 million today) in damages for internal and external injuries caused by “a falling nude” (Desert Sun, April 1, 1971).

The outcome of the suit is unknown.

Lorenzi Lake Park c. 1931

1931

Soon after Governor Frederic “Fred” B. Balzar approved wide-open gambling for Nevada, three men applied for an initial gambling license  from the City of Las Vegas to operate a craps game at Lorenzi Lake Park in the Pavilion building.

Lorenzi, with a pool, dance area, two lakes, rowboats and concessions and an affordable entry fee, was a local hot spot for fun. Numerous events, including concerts, prize fights, horse races, dance contests and beauty pageants, took place there.

The city commissioners denied Roy Grimes, R.H. Davenport and D.J. MacCauley a gambling permit, which they believed was unjust and discriminatory. The new state gambling law began on March 19, and they’d filed their application on April 17, in proper form and meeting all the necessary requirements.

Agency’s Approach Questioned

In fact, the commissioners’ refusal to grant the three men a license was in accord with the agency’s recently adopted resolution, on March 30, that it only would afford gambling licenses in the future to entities that already had one from the previous quarter. The moratorium was to go into effect on April 5 and remain in place until the agency could develop a policy for issuing new licenses and outline a city area in which gambling houses could operate.

However, prior to moratorium decision, the commissioners had granted gambling licenses to six clubs — Boulder, Las Vegas, Exchange, Northern, Red Rooster and Meadows.

“The city commissioners arbitrarily fixed the number to be granted at six, and rejected all other applications other than the six favored ones” reported the Nevada State Journal (May 28, 1931).

Further, after the decision, the commissioners make an exception to the moratorium, which was they could grant  gambling licenses to people of the “Ethiopian race” for games at establishments “that catered to persons of the same race.”

Off To The Courts

In early May, Grimes, Davenport and McCauley filed for a writ of mandamus against the Las Vegas mayor and city commissioners, the first court action to be filed in Nevada regarding the 1931 state gambling law. They wanted the court to compel the agency to give them a gambling license. (Another mandamus action in the wake of the new gambling law was taken later in the month, in Northern Nevada.) The trio’s attorney, Charles Lee Horsey, argued that “the law prohibits discriminations and that all who conform to the same standards must be given the same privileges.”

On May 27, the case was presented to the Nevada Supreme Court, whose jurists had to determine whether or not city or county authorities have the right to limit the number of gambling licenses to be issued in a community.

Gambling Stigma Revealed

The ruling, which came two months later, in July, was the opinion of two of the three judges, Edward A. Ducker and Benjamin W. Coleman. It determined that “the city of Las Vegas exercised sound discretion in denying the application” because it was for a type of business that was “of a character regarded as tending to be injurious” (Nevada State Journal, July 9, 1931).  And when it came to this kind of enterprise, governing bodies could control which ones did and didn’t receive gambling licenses.

Contrarily, Judge John A. Sanders, the sole dissenter, opined that the commissioners indeed had acted arbitrarily and discriminatorily and that the writ should be granted.

Sources

Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas University Libraries’ Digital Collection

Sheriff E. Russell Trathen

1931

In April 1931, the month after the new, liberal gambling law went into effect (March 19), Washoe County Sheriff E. Russell Trathen, per his job description, collected $20,000 (about $330,000 today) in gambling license fees for the month of April from operators in Northern Nevada.

Seeking Piece Of The Pie

First, Trathen went to the Washoe County Commission (WCC) and demanded 6 percent of the total in commission, which amounted to about $720 ($11,800 today). He argued he was entitled to it based on the state’s license tax act of 1915, which afforded sheriffs a 6 percent cut of the proceeds of all business licenses (and 20% of grazing licenses) sold.

The commissioners sought a legal opinion from District Attorney Melvin Jepson, who advised them that according to the law, Trathen wasn’t owed or due any compensation for the collection of license fees. The WCC told the sheriff no.

Next Course Of Action

Trathen then retained Attorney Lester D. Summerfield. In early May, the two filed for a writ of mandamus, which is an order from a superior court to a lower court, government entity, corporation or public entity to take or not take an action, as required by law. Summerfield/Trathen asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the county treasurer to  accept the license fees Trathen had collected minus 6 percent becuase the treasurer had refused to do so the prior month, April. (Another mandamus action related to the new gambling law was taken earlier in the month in Las Vegas.)

“The case attracted wide interest through the state, as sheriffs of other counties might be able to collect a commission on gambling licenses” the Reno Evening Gazette noted (July 8, 1931).

Not Like The Others

On July 8, 1931, the higher court dismissed the writ of mandamus and issued its ruling, which was unanimous: Nevada sheriffs aren’t authorized to retain any part of the gambling license fees they collect. They said the 1931 gambling act, unlike the 1915 law, lacked a provision for such a commission.

What the new legislation did spell out was that sheriffs were responsible for unpaid fees; they were “held liable on [their] official bond for all moneys due for such licenses remaining uncollected by reason of [their] negligence,” reported the Nevada State Journal (July 9, 1931).

Sources

Photo from Police Motor Units

Reno Evening Gazette, July 15, 1931

1945-1947

Ray Wherrit and Austin K. Wright of San Luis Obispo, California set out in 1945 to build a $120,000 hotel-casino in the Crystal Bay Park subdivision on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. The two had purchased five lots there for that purpose.

In November, after hearing the details of the project, the Washoe County Commissioners approved it.

A number of property owners in the tract petitioned the commissioners to withdraw their approval. Instead, the authoritative body stood by its original decision to greenlight the resort.

The Move To Plan B

For whatever reasons, perhaps due to the protests, Wherrit, with Wright no longer as a partner, downscaled the proposed development to a casino-bar to be built on his lots that, according to the deed, could be used for such a commercial enterprise.

At the time, the town of Crystal Bay already contained some casinos, including the Ta-Neva-Ho and the Cal-Neva Lodge.

Wherrit went before the county commissioners a second time, in February 1946, for permission to proceed. Despite  major grumblings from some, construction was approved.

Again, some Crystal Bay Park residents were unhappy with the ruling, which galvanized them to abort the project.

Their efforts, including public objections to such an enterprise being built in their neighborhood, eventually succeeded in getting Wherrit to scrap his plan. At that point, he conveyed the land back to John J. Heffernan, from whom he’d purchased it.

Permanent Solution Sought

In February, about ten residents sued Heffernan and the Crystal Bay Corp. (CBC), the company that originally had subdivided the acreage. The purpose of the suit was to place development restrictions on Heffernan’s property and any unrestricted, CBC-owned land, thereby forever preventing the erection of any similar entities in the future.

The defendants fought back to keep their parcels restrictions free.

The Final Answer

After a delay of more than a year, a non-jury trial finally took place in May 1947 and lasted two days.

Judge A.J. Maestretti ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor. He determined the same limitations on development and use should apply to the entire subdivision and ordered that, accordingly, all property in Crystal Bay Park be built out only for residential purposes.

Sources