Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 34

Monday, March 7, 4-SEVABA IXHtKS AHEAD, Rem GazetteJournal Tahoe Rural 4 mi spn ii nr. ri -wirsr-' i fMul FILE PHOTO BY DOUG MCMILLAN WINNEMUCCA'S NEWEST STAR: Despite the economic downturn of 1982, several smaller Nevada towns expanded their gaming enterprises, including the new Star in Winnemucca, above, which opened in July. From page 2 So, Weidinger says, the casino has worked harder to please the lower-income visitors the people, who might come on the bus from Fresno just to spend the weekend. For example, Caesars promoted the slot machines more last year by making the slot area brighter and giving away T-shirts to jackpot winners. The casino also started selling 50-cent beer hotdogs.

The latter proved particularly successful; 100,000 hotdogs were sold in three months. At Sahara, a similar strategy has prevailed. "Obviously the Economy has had an effect. People just don't have the number of discretionary dollars that they did in the past," publicity manager Skip Sayre says. "So we have to provide more of the extra kinds of things the giveaways, the discounts, the catering to the motel customers.

We have to make people's vacations that much more exciting." But the small casinos can't afford special promotions and extensive advertising. Their only chance for survival had been simply to cut back. Steve Jenkins, advertising and public relations manager for Barney's Club, admits, "We've had to cut the hell out of our payroll just trying to make ends meet. We have to watch where our money is going more than in the past we can't give away matches and ash trays to the motels like we used to. The big money is still up here, but in general there's not as much free spending.

Tips are down and more people are playing the nickel slots." Still, 1982 ended on a promising note with Douglas County gross gaming revnue in the last four months up 5.5 percent over the same period in 1981. And officials say that a very successful New Year's holiday and Washington's Birthday weekend are indications that at least the local economy is on the upswing. "I firmly believe the economy has hit bottom and we're on the road to recovery, Van Wagenen says. "But we want to be there promoting Tahoe when things do get better and people can afford to take vacations again." That's when the new marketing council comes in, he says. Created in mid-December, the organization aims to promote family oriented special events during the off-peaks months of late spring and fall.

The activities will be selected to benefit the entire community rather than any individual business. The start-up funds are being provided by the organization's members: 12 percent each from Caesars, Harrah's, Harvey's and Sahara; 22 percent from the city of South Lake Tahoe, visitors bureau and chamber of commerce combined; 18 percent from Douglas County and the Tahoe Douglas Chamber of Commerce combined; 6 percent from Heavenly Valley Ski Resort; and 6 percent from the local media. Van Wagenen says the events eventually should pay for themselves. The first project of the council is a $200,000 "Tahoe Wild West Week," planned for June 18 through 25. It will feature a parade, annual wagon train trek, Mon-tie Montana andJiis Wild West Show and a celebrity host.

Van Wagenen says the group will spend about $60,000 promoting the event nationwide, and he hopes it will raise as much as $100,000. "We are limited only by our imagination," Van Wagenen says. "We've created a monster in the marketing council but it's a real nice monster." In addition, the council has negotiated with AirCal in an attempt to perfuade the airline to offer regularly scheduled air service to the Lake Tahoe Airport a move casino and tourism officials say would tremendously increase the number of visitors. The council was instrumental in getting AirCal to offer weekly charter flights to the lake on a trial basis, but those are scheduled to end in late April. From page 2 The casino brings an average of 40 to 50 buses a week to Elko from Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and even Canada.

That means the Red Lion is bringing 500 to 700 tourists to Elko each weekend. Dick Toothman, who ran the Commercial's bus program, has 20 tour directors out "beating the bushes" for more bus tours. As a result, the Red Lion is booked solid for every weekend for the next four months, Hammermeister declared. Overall, its occupancy is an enviable 72 percent for new rooms in the $38 to $48 range. But one of the biggest success stories in Nevada gaming have been Elko County's two bordertowns Wendover and Jackpot.

Thanks to them, Elko County posted a hefty 10 percent gain in gaming revenues while the rest of the state's gambling resorts either lost ground or barely held their own. In Wendover, the new $11 million truck-stop casino complex, Nevada Crossing opened, the Red Garter Casino re-opened under the new co-ownership of former Nevada Gaming Commission Board chairman Roger Trounday, the new Goldrush enjoyed its first full year of operation and the Stateline, Wendover's first, showed off a new addition. In Jackpot, Cactus Pete's started construction of 100 new luxury hotel rooms, expaned convention and shopping space, while a new runway was added to the airport. When the new addition opens in mid-April, Jackpot will have the first elevators in northwest Nevada, Cactus Pete's spokesman Carl Hayden said proudly. The additions will double Cactus Pete's, which doubled in size only two years ago.

Across U.S. Highway 93, the Horseshu, also owned by Cactus Pete's, remodelled its casino and added such accoutrements as a slot machine bar, where gamblers can pull the handle with one hand and tip their glass with the other. And 1982 wasa banner year in both bordertowns, spokesmen for the casinos say. Business is slower in Ely, according to Sonny Russell, general manager of the Bank Club. "We've stayed alive," he said.

"We consider ourselves happy about that." Mining ventures and oil exploration is at a near standstill due to the extremely heavy winter, he said, and the White Pine Power Project proposed huge, coal-fired power plant construction won't bring new people to town for at least a year, he said. Gas prices have been falling everywhere, but that won't mean as much to Ely, where pump prices average almost 30 cents higher than in Reno or Las Vegas. The Bank Club recently had to lay off employees for the first time in a long while, he said. "I don't mean to paint a dim picture," Russell said. "We expect an upturn this summer." But that will take increased activity in mining, better weather and continued community events such as the chariot races, horse races, and bowling and golf tournaments planned for this summer.

Tonopah also has suffered from the travel recession, said Roy Hyatt, manager of the Mizpah Hotel. Layoffs of 300 workers at Anaconda's big molybdenum mine north of town and other closures have lost more than 1,200 residents, Hyatt estimated. And the venerable Mizpah also has had to split its business with Tonopah Station, a new casino which opened last March. "Of course, you take anything where you've been used to being the only game in town and it's going take some of your business," but the Mizpah is still the number-one spot in Tonopah, he declared. To try to stay there, the casino remodelled its annex into a country-western "fun palace," patterned after Gilley's of Houston and booking many of If the mines reopen, if the Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot lands more government contracts and if gasoline prices stay down, the EI Capitan's business will improve, he said.

Meanwhile, the casino has started operating its own bus to Bishop to draw in customers. "We have a lot of regular customers come here," Mattson said. "It's quiet and out of the way. You don't have all the fire engines, traffic and noise. It's a banana belt with good weather all year round.

"One thing that might hurt us is they're going build a bypass around Hawthorne for dangerous laden vehicles." Tourists could follow the truck bypass, skipping downtown and the casino, he said. How much this can be prevented will depend on the highway signs. Like many rural Nevada towns, one thing in Hawthorne's favor is its distance from anyplace else 135 miles from either Reno or Tonopah makes it a natural stopover, he, said. Fallon is in a slightly different situation. It's too close to Reno to try to draw the weekend tourists, but its two main casinos the Nugget and the Bonanza still cater to thousands of out-of-towners and the Navy personnel who train at the Fallon naval Air Station.

While some local resiflents complain about the noise that increased training of the nation's Navy pilots might bring to rural Nevada, Gene Terry, who manages the two casinos for owner Mike Louf, views those jets as manna from Heaven. "With the men they bring in for training missions here, it helps us get over the slow months before tourists start," said Terry, who formerly managed Hawthorne'sSl Capitan. "Right now, there are 1,350 navy personnel here," he said, adding that nearly everyone of them will visit one of the two casinos during their stay. In fact, Terry has had to hire "quite a few new people" in the normally slow winter. Local people and passing motorists are still important, he added, and the casinos try to lure them in with a 99-cent breakfast, $1.49 lunch and $5.95 prime rib dinner.

1 "I'm certainly looking forward to a good summer," Terry said. the same bands which entertain at Reno's Shy Clown. "It's first-class entertainment for this size of town," Hyatt said. Despite the downtrends of 1982, Casino West of Yerington experienced an overall 30 percent increase in business from the previous year, said Bryan Masini, owner-operator. This is mainly because the casino is only in its seventh year and still growing.

"We started small," said Masini, one of the state's youngest casino owners at 30. "I'm not saying we're doing great, but we're staying after the customers." The small clubs have to increase promotion "to find ways to keep the locals happy and coming into your casino," he said. While a small casino walks a "close line" between making and losing money on promotions such as bus tours, "there is a point where you can get them to come into a small town like Yerington by offering better deals than the big clubs," he said. "People see a bargain and like small-town courtesy and we can take care of them," he said. "We give them something they won't see in Reno." Yet Casino West has patterned its promotions after the big clubs in Reno, with free dinners, free motel rooms and contests giving away a car, a trip to Hawaii or $20 gold tokens from a slot machine to "get these people over the hill," said Masini.

"The problem is where do you draw the line on the he asked. Small-town casinos can never ignore the drop-in motorists, which is why he places packets of coupons up and down U.S. Highway 95 to entice people from the Bridgeport area. "It's crazy for a guy sitting out here with 100 (slot) machines to become an economist," said Masini, asked to predict the prospects for 1983, "But we think we can market what we have here a friendly clean place that treats people right. "Everyone kept telling me this would be a bad year for me, but since the recession, I think we've run more economically.

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