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Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
Tick Segerblom, like the rest of Clark County and businesses in the Strip corridor, can only wait and see if the Las Vegas Grand Prix has, in Segerblom’s words, “learned their lesson,” after last year’s F1 race fiasco that interrupted commerce and traffic like no other event in Las Vegas history.
Segerblom, the Clark County Commission chairman, said Las Vegas Grand Prix officials expect prep work for November’s race is to start in earnest in September.
You can’t blame businesses that say the race brutalized their revenues last year for feeling triggered by the Las Vegas Grand Prix’s plans for the F1 Nov. 21-23 race event. Here’s the F1 Vegas game plan:
F1’s Vegas race spokesperson Lori Nelson-Kraft told LVSportsBiz.com after the meeting that Las Vegas Grand Prix work will begin with “lighting first followed by barriers in the overnight hours with a lane reduction that reopens in the morning.”
Once again, business owners who say the inaugural F1 race caused their revenues to plummet because access problems and traffic issues attended the county commission meeting to voice their displeasure with Las Vegas Grand Prix 2.0. Colorado-based Liberty Media owns Formula 1.
Randy Markin, owner and general manager of Battista’s Hole in The Wall Italian Restaurant and the Stage Door Bar and Casino, said, “We lost employees and millions of dollars in those eight months of F1 disruption. F1 has said it outright, they will not write any of us a reimbursement check. The County has been mostly silent.
“So now we stand here with the looming threat of a 2024 race. I operate my business completely dependent on the public rights of way, which was completed impaired as a result of the 2023 race. This was done without following the normal procedures or giving adequate notice to us.
“The County cannot so cavalierly hand over what belongs to all of us to a private corporation whose only concern is profit has already proven to be a disaster. I implore you to think long and hard about the consequences of repeating 2023. We cannot allow the interests of a few to outweigh the needs of the many. We cannot sacrifice the lifeblood of our economy, the famed Las Vegas Strip, on the altar of F1.”
Wade Bohn, owner of Jay’s Market on Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection, was not happy with how the county commissioners have handled the F1 race impacts on his and other businesses.
“You have a traffic study for 2024. Yet, you have not taken the time to sit with me, or any other business owner to discuss the result of that traffic study. Traffic is the lifeblood of a gas station and convenience store, yet you have such a lack of concern or respect for me and the other business that have lost millions and have asked and pleaded with you to pay some attention, and you have been silent.
“F1 met with us 56 days ago, they showed us no traffic study, no proof that there is a need for a bridge that cuts off my traffic ingress and egress. They had the audacity to tell me we would have less losses than 2023! Less?? So maybe a couple of million in losses instead of approximately twice that amount or more? Who are they, F1, to determine my revenue for 2023 and now 2024?
“I have owned my business for 26 years! How is it possible that the County, who is supposed to represent my interests instead of catering to outside interests, can try to bankrupt me in two years? Because you will if the 2024 F1 race is held.”
Segerblom said the door is not closed on reimbursing the businesses that say they lost money.
But one business, Ellis Island hotel-casino, has sued F1 and Clark County over allegations it lost millions of dollars in revenues.
And another lawsuit is imminent. A group of four businesses is also planning to file a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Grand Prix and Clark County as well.
PSA