Heart Attack Grill’s tavern license stalled
A restaurant known for clogging arteries ran into a blockage of the bureaucratic kind in Las Vegas City Hall on Wednesday.
Heart Attack Grill managing member Jon Basso's bid for tavern license approval from the City Council got waylaid when Las Vegas police objected because authorities hadn't vetted all of the restaurant's investors, a group that includes Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
Basso, who was seeking a permanent license, received a six-month extension on a temporary license and was told to return when the investigations are complete.
"We are not stopping them from making money or opening their doors," Ward 5 Councilman Ricki Barlow said. "We can't give up the house in order to have a streamlined business license process."
Karen Duddleston, business services manager for the city, had approved waivers from background checks for some of the investors in the restaurant, which has made headlines for menu items such as the quadruple bypass burger, which weighs 2 pounds and has 20 slices of bacon.
Duddleston said she had authority to grant the waivers after researching the group and determining people involved with operating the restaurant had already been investigated.
Sgt. Carmen Donegan of the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Investigations Section objected on the grounds that not all the investors nor the source of their funds had been investigated.
Donegan did not identify the investors by name. But of the five shareholders listed, only Hsieh and Steve Hill, another Zappos employee, have yet to go through suitability findings for liquor or gaming licenses. The other shareholders, downtown developer Andrew Donner and Fred Mossler, have undergone the process.
"We have two investors who have never been investigated, in Clark County, in Henderson, in North Las Vegas, anywhere," Donegan said.
According to documents submitted with the application, Basso owns 46.7 percent of the shares, Mossler and Hsieh 17.78 percent each, Hill 13.33 percent and Donner 4.44 percent.
In an email, Hsieh, who has no day-to-day role in the restaurant, suggested officials don't realize how time-consuming the process can be. Hsieh already has led the movement to bring Zappos' headquarters from Henderson to downtown Las Vegas and has pledged to spend about $350 million of his own money investing in business and culture downtown.
"I have no problem with the concept of getting a background check. I just don't have the time to do the actual research and paperwork in its current form, which I've been told takes over 40 hours to research and complete," Hsieh wrote. "I would be more than happy to pay for an intermediary to do all the paperwork as long as it takes up less than one hour of my personal time. I also suggest that anyone who advocates getting background checks done in their current form attempt to go through the process themselves so they can understand how much time and resources it actually takes."
