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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
A fourth business in the Strip corridor, popular Italian eatery Ferraro’s Ristorante, has sued the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, Formula One owner Liberty Media and Clark County, alleging the race’s 3.8-mile racetrack hindered customers from reaching the business and cost Ferraro’s millions of dollars in revenues.
“While touted as an economic boon and benefit to the city, F1 has had the opposite impact on Ferraro’s, causing irreparable harm to Ferraro’s and its employees,” alleged the lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court Tuesday.
“Ferraro’s has suffered a loss of thousands of guests and millions of dollars, and those losses will only increase as the political and corporate machine behind the F1 race continues to push the annual F1 race over the objections and significant disruptions to local Las Vegas businesses,” the complaint said.
Here’s an excerpt:
The inaugural road race event staged Nov. 16-18 had nine months of track preparation work in the Strip corridor, plus another four to six weeks of dismantling the track. This year’s race event Nov. 21-23 has a 17-week road work and dismantling period that began this month..
Last year’s unprecedented road and lane closures disrupted commerce and transportation on the Strip and in the entertainment corridor like no other event in Las Vegas history.
A strange element to the Clark County approval of the annual race was that county commissioners failed to garner any compensation for the county for handing over the region’s economic lifeblood road — the Strip — to a private sports promoter for a 90-minute, 50-lap race that also took over Koval Lane, Harmon Avenue and Sands Avenue.
It should be noted that this lawsuit is not seeking injunctive relief to try and block this year’s Nov. 21-23 Las Vegas Grand Prix event.
Representatives for the Las Vegas Grand Prix and Clark County said there were no comments on the allegations in the lawsuit.
LVSportsBiz.com interviewed restaurant owner Gino Ferraro in January for a story on businesses that claimed the F1 race cost business owners millions of dollars.
LVSportsBiz.com has reported that the F1 race paperwork and approval process quickly moved through Clark County’s review process without the appropriate level of scrutiny that would be needed for a sports event of this scope.
That was validated in the allegations made by the 29-page lawsuit filed yesterday. Take a read:
A previous lawsuit against F1 and Clark County also alleged the county fast-tracked the Las Vegas Grand Prix permit approvals without following proper procedures, review an scrutiny.
(Disclaimer: LVSportsBiz.com has appeared twice before the Clark County Commission to protest that the county did not make public the Las Vegas Grand Prix traffic management plan when it was submitted May 1. )
The county commissioners approved the F1 race based on the promotional grand prix talk by LVCVA (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority) head Steve Hill and an economic report conducted by Hill’s friend, Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero. Both Hill and Aguero have heralded the Las Vegas Grand Prix as a financial benefit to the Las Vegas economy.
But downtown Las Vegas hotels reported that they did not reap the benefits of the F1 race and it was mostly upscale hotels like Bellagio and Wynn that took in more money than usual for that weekend in November compared to the same weekend in past years. The weekends before Thanksgiving are typically a slower business weekend for the Strip.
The LVCVA is spending $1 million on a music festival in downtown Las Vegas during this year’s F1 race weekend in hopes the music event will draw visiting F1 fans from the Strip to downtown.
Three other businesses have already sued Las Vegas Grand Prix and Clark County over the Las Vegas Grand Prix impacts on local establishments.
Battista’s Hole in a Wall restaurant and Stage Door Casino, businesses on Flamingo Road between Las Vegas Boulevard and Koval Lane, claimed in their lawsuit filed earlier this month that they lost millions of dollars because of the F1 race event.
Ellis Island on Koval Lane also filed a lawsuit against F1, the Las Vegas Grand Prix and Clark County, alleging the same assertions in its legal papers in May.