Newlyweds sue banquet hall after Metro shuts down reception

Dance, food, drinks, cake and a live band awaited a couple hundred revelers celebrating Las Vegas newlyweds.

Guests had traveled from places as far as Mexico, Chicago and Indiana.

But two hours into the April 23 reception, as people were still arriving, and before the hired musicians played a single note, more than a half-dozen Metropolitan Police Department officers showed up to stop the party.

Kathy’s Vintage Venue was not licensed to serve alcohol, according to a lawsuit the couple filed May 25 against the eastern valley banquet hall about a month after the shutdown “ruined the day,” bride Mayra Ramos told the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week in Spanish.

Apologetic police whisked away disappointed attendees, leaving the couple no time for a backup plan, said Ramos, who, with groom Oscar Zuniga, had paid $9,000 to book the venue for eight hours.

“Instead of having a beautiful celebration, we were left with regret and stuck in a sad situation,” she said.

The complaint filed in District Court alleges breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation, breach of duty and rescission and restitution. The “disastrous consequences” include emotional humiliation and embarrassment, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit, which seeks compensation of more than $20,000, named the venue’s parent company, Onestar Events Co., as a defendant, with Anna Benitez and Kathy Bolanos.

Reached by phone on the venue’s listed number, Bolanos declined to comment, saying that an attorney was handling the lawsuit.

She would not name the lawyer.

Metro refused to release any details, citing an open investigation.

Nevada secretary of state records show that the venue has an active business license. But a Clark County license database shows that a liquor license had been denied at some point for the banquet facility, located near Sandhill Road and Flamingo Road.

Letters Clark County officials sent to the venue’s owner, Reynaldo Alvarez Dominguez, on May 11, said that his business license had been temporarily suspended and that a liquor license application had been denied.

The documents, obtained Thursday by the Review-Journal, note that Metro had contacted the county’s Department of Business License four days after the canceled reception to report that the venue had multiple noise complaints and that it was allowing live music and serving alcohol without licensing.

The bureau told the business in October that it had committed an alcohol-related violation and cited the business for the offense in early April, the documents said.

The complaint alleges that the liquor license had been revoked two days before the wedding, and that although the venue operators knew, they did not tell the couple, leaving them no opportunity to move the celebration elsewhere.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants had “acknowledged in writing” that the newlyweds were owed a $14,000 refund but had “refused” to pay.

The special day had started perfectly, Ramos said.

In a photo from a North Las Vegas church that morning, the couple held hands as a priest officiated their wedding.

At the venue, bride and groom posed alongside mariachis as she held a guitarron bass and he raised a violin.

Both flashed wide smiles.

Ramos said they booked the venue in July, shortly after Zuniga proposed marriage following a decade-long relationship.

The couple spent another $7,000 for travel accommodations for “many” of the guests, $1,000 on alcohol and $4,000 for the musicians, the complaint said. Bolanos handled the booking, Ramos said.

They had been awaiting a memorable night where everything went “super bien,” Ramos said.

Ramos said she would have liked to have received a “good apology” from Bolanos that day and for her to remedy the error.

“It wasn’t just any day,” Ramos said. “It was my wedding day, which we had been looking forward to.”

Asked if the couple would schedule another party, Ramos said no.

“That day was unique,” she said. “It can’t be repeated.”

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.