Thursday, June 03, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
City Council passes ban on Sunday new car sales
New law doesn't affect used vehicles
By MICHAEL SQUIRES
REVIEW-JOURNAL
A long-standing tradition among local car dealers became Las Vegas law on Wednesday.
The Las Vegas City Council voted unanimously to prohibit new-car dealerships from doing business on Sunday, mimicking a county ordinance adopted in 2001.
"This tradition has roots tracing back to when we were youngsters," said attorney Joseph Brown, who represented the dealerships supporting the ordinance. "This just promotes uniformity."
Currently, no new-car dealerships do business on Sundays, according to proponents. But with more out-of-state owners moving into the Las Vegas market, dealers said they wanted to put their handshake agreement into law to prevent newcomers from breaking tradition and forcing all dealerships to open on Sundays.
"A lot of them (new owners) are coming from 7-day markets," said Gary Ackerman who works for the Gaudin Automotive Group and serves as president of the state's new-car dealer association. "They don't have the personal attachment to the issue."
The city ordinance doesn't apply to used car dealers within city limits, some of which do business on Sunday.
Supporters said the law benefits dealership employees by guaranteeing them a day off. And, they said, it gives residents near dealerships a day without the sounds of air drills, loudspeakers and test drives.
The county ordinance, passed in 2001, was criticized as a transparent anti-competitive behavior on the part of local car dealers.
But the only critics of the city's Sunday sales ban were two citizens who wondered why used-car dealerships weren't being held to the same standard.
Conita Jones and Gary Swanciger, who led a successful push earlier this year to ban test drives on residential streets in the city, told the council that to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods near dealerships, the ban needs to apply to all dealerships.
"They put used car dealerships at an advantage," Swanciger said.
Councilman Michael Mack, who sponsored the bill, said he had only been approached by new-car dealers.
