Court Opinion

ID: 9631185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:31:17.165349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:49.876966
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
dissenting:
The licensing board denied slot machine licenses to a licensed bar on the ground that slot machines in the bar would be “incompatible” with the neighborhood. I think the board abused its discretion in doing so. I cannot imagine how the mere putting of slot machines in a bar can so change its character as to make it any more or less incompatible with its surroundings. At present the bar is licensed and presumably is compatible with its surroundings; a slot machine or two does not alter this condition. I can certainly understand why those appearing before the board to protest granting of the license would think that a bar is incompatible with the schools and churches in the neighborhood, but a decision on this issue has been made; the bar is licensed and legally in place. What is clear to me is that the slot machines do not change anything; and it is apparent to me that the board simply yielded to public pressure without any legitimate reason for refusing to grant the slot machine license.
Denying a slot machine license to this operating bar business is not, in my view, reasonably related to the public welfare. County of Clark v. Atlantic Seafoods, 96 Nev. 608, 615 P.2d 233 (1980). We held that Atlantic Seafoods had been arbitrarily denied a license to sell wine in its seafood store and ordered a license issued. I do not see that a slot machine in a bar is any more detrimental to the common good than is wine in a seafood store.
The majority says that the licensing board had “evidence before it which supports a conclusion that granting the licenses would have a negative impact on the public health and welfare— namely, that the increased traffic would create a hazard to children using the school facilities across the street.” At the time of *100the slot machine license application Phoenix Pub was licensed and operating a bar. The Clark County Liquor and Gaming Licensing Board and my distinguished brothers in the majority may believe that putting a few slot machines in a licensed bar has a negative eifect on the public health and welfare and is hazardous to children, I do not; and neither did the trial judge who heard the case. If the Phoenix Pub presents a possible “hazard to children,” such hazard was created when the bar was licensed and not by the threat of slot machines in the bar. I would affirm the judgment of the district court.