Special treatment?

Jillian's restaurant and tavern is one of the few remaining tenants in the Las Vegas City Council's moribund downtown "Neonopolis" redevelopment block.

The council, which seized the land in question under eminent domain and continues to extend subsidies in its repeated attempts to jump-start the foundering project, thus has a vested interest in seeing Jillian's stay open.

The problem? To remain open, Jillian's President Loraine Kusuhara says she needs a liquor license. She was initially issued such a license on a temporary basis last month, but as of June 6 the time had come for the city to either issue her the real thing -- or not.

Under city ordinance, in order to be awarded that license, such an outfit's principals -- including landlords, because landlords presumably have the power to extract favors -- have to pass police background checks. And at a May 16 City Council meeting, city staff reported one of the property's owners, Dharmesh Bhanabhai, refuses to submit to such a background check.

What to do?

No problem, Mayor Oscar Goodman and the other members of the council decided. Although City Code Section 606.130 calls for such background checks, it also stipulates that the "director at his discretion" may waive such fingerprinting, et al, if city staff decide such parties are so far removed from day-to-day operations as not to directly impact conduct of the business.

Waiving the requirement that Mr. Bhanabhai submit to the check, the council last week granted Ms. Kusuhara and Jillian's their permanent liquor license.

"It doesn't bother me, because we're doing the right thing," explained Mayor Goodman. "Why would I want to put 50 people out of work?"

The mayor's instinct is correct. It makes little sense to endanger the economic viability of any establishment in the already struggling downtown with all these cumbersome police screening requirements.

But the council didn't do what it could and should have done, which would be to relax or largely repeal these arcane rules for everybody. Instead, it merely waived them for an establishment with which the city and its staff have an unusually cozy relationship.

If Jillian's were to close for lack of a license, the city would surely have to admit utter failure at Neonopolis, a pet redevelopment scheme. Beyond that, any city employee with a proper ID gets a 25 percent discount at Jillian's -- making it a kind of unofficial city cafeteria.

That's perfectly legal, of course. But meantime, what chance does a struggling tavern over by Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway stand of getting its background check requirement waived?

A city spokeswoman said it's not unusual for the City Council to make exceptions to the background check requirement. But she couldn't cite the last time such an exception was granted.

And consider that mere bartenders at Jillian's still have to pass a background check to get a police work card. If the ancient rationale for these checks was to prevent mob incursions into the local tavern trade, are we now more concerned about a potentially corrupt bartender than a reluctant landlord?