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

1947-1970

For some businesses, the Red Line was beneficial; for others, detrimental.

The Red Line designated a rectangular region of downtown Reno, Nevada in which casinos with unlimited gambling could exist. Clubs offering gambling outside the designated area were limited to 20 slot machines and three blackjack tables.

The city council officially created this district in 1947 via ordinance 791 as a way to control gambling. Once the industry had been legalized in 1931, new clubs had sprung up and existing illegal casinos had moved to operate in the light — all over downtown Reno. So many places had opened so quickly that business and property owners had feared land values would soar, making it no longer economically viable to run small non-gaming operations in the city core.

The name came from the red line that was used to indicate the boundaries on a map. Those were roughly Sierra Street on the west, Commercial Row on the north, Lake Street on the east and Second Street on the South. The governing body adjusted the zone slightly over the years due to pressure by various groups.

Tested In The Courts

The Red Line became one of Reno’s highly controversial and contested issues.

Over the decades, several individuals and groups protested the Red Line, some even demanding the city council repeal the ordinance. For example, Ernest J. Primm, owner of Club Primadonna, who wanted to expand his place beyond the Red Line, took the matter to the Nevada Supreme Court in the late 1940s. He argued the city council’s denial of his request was discriminatory and arbitrary. The higher court, however, also ruled against Primm.

In 1961, the city council expanded the zone but only for some. To encourage construction of fancy hotels, it exempted from the Red Line law those in downtown Reno with more than 100 rooms.

The issue again heated up in that decade. Critics argued the Red Line continued to hurt Reno in that a few major operations monopolized downtown, squeezing out potential smaller gambling businesses.

In mid-1969, the city council again denied a request to eradicate the Red Line. Soon after, owners of the Colony Casino, located just outside the Red Line, sued the city of Reno and its councilmen and manager, claiming the gambling boundary was unconstitutional and the city lacked the authority to pass such an ordinance.

But, like with Primm’s case, the judge ruled the ordinance was constitutional and a proper exercise of power.

Council Takes Action

In spring 1970, the city council passed an ordinance that eliminated the Red Line and, instead, replaced it with a 100-room mandate.

Under the new regulation, all businesses that wanted to offer unrestricted gambling could, anywhere in Reno, not just downtown, but had to have 100 or more lodging rooms on offer. Previously, that hadn’t been the case for properties within the designated zone.

Seventeen downtown casinos were grandfathered in under the new law; if they were to expand their casinos, they wouldn’t have to construct 100 rooms if the added space adjoined their existing gambling facility.

The new ordinance, which seemed more restrictive than the original, came under attack. But it stood.

Sources

1926-present

By 1963, major casino owners in Reno, Nevada thought the downtown fixture was outdated and ugly compared to their modern buildings on Virginia Street. They even offered to pay for it and its maintenance for five years.

That was the Reno Arch, a famous city landmark.

They probably had a point. The arch originally had been installed in 1926 to celebrate completion of Highway 40 and advertise the associated exposition slated for the next year. In fact, the sign had read: “Reno / Nevada’s Transcontinental Highways Exposition June 29–Aug 1, 1927.” It spanned Virginia Street at Commercial Row.

The city, however, had changed the verbiage in 1929 to: “Reno / The Biggest Little City in the World.”

Some of the initial slogans in the running (oh, my) were:

• Reno, The West’s Highest Assay
• In Progressive Reno, Loiter, Linger, Locate
• Reno, Biggest Little Town On Earth
• Reno, A City You’ll Like
• Reno, The Best Out West
• East Or West, Reno Serves Best

Five years later, after numerous complaints about the new tagline, primarily by local organizations (some residents even wanted the entire sign taken down), the city had removed it, having left simply the word “RENO” in neon green letters. This change, too, upset some Renoites. Ultimately, in 1935, Reno had returned the slogan.

The new 1963 arch spotlighted the same wording but featured a mod style and colors — yellow, white and blue. A revolving star, encircled with lights, topped it. Creation of the sign cost Reno’s gambling consortium — Harolds Club, Primadonna Club, Nevada Club, Colony Club, Horseshoe and Poor Pete’s — about $100,000 (roughly $777,450 today).

Today’s arch, the third version, debuted in 1989, having undergone a makeover.

Sources

1952

When Ernest J. Primm owned the Monterey Club, a poker house in Gardena, California (a Los Angeles suburb), he claimed on his state income taxes the losses of his shills, up to $500 ($4,500 today) a month, as expenses or losses — illegitimate deductions.

Seven years later, it caught up with him. The state’s Franchise Tax Board assessed him $1,589 ($13,000 today) for that year when his enterprise grossed $1.3 million ($11.7 million today).

(Primm also owned the Embassy Club and Rainbow Club in Gardena and Club Primadonna in Reno, Nevada.)