Vegas car wash regs upset mobile operators

Cars in Clark County, Henderson and North Las Vegas are about to get a lot cleaner.

That’s according to several area mobile carwash operators who say they would rather pick up stakes than pay to stay in the city of Las Vegas, where code compliance officers plan to start charging $250 per business vehicle for a new industry-specific license approved by the City Council on Sept. 3.

City officials say credentials mandated by a new ordinance should help stem a tidal wave of complaints about unlicensed mobile carwash operators filed by area residents and other business owners.

They say a companion ordinance that bars all carwashing on public rights of way should also help prevent carwashing chemicals from entering city storm drains.

Under the ordinances, mobile carwash and auto-detailing-business owners also are banned from operating within 150 feet of all stationary carwashes and from working in private driveways or parking lots without written consent.

Licensed mobile carwashers and detailers, many of whom were caught flat-footed by the ordinances, say the new rules are nothing more than a money grab.

The city expects it will spend $16,344 a year to enforce the new ordinances but will collect only about $13,800 in revenue. But that doesn’t include fines. The ordinances include a heavy fine and up to six months in jail for unlicensed mobile operators.

“This is an easy way for the city to stick money in its pocket,” Detail Kings owner Richard Bovino said Sept. 8. “Landscapers don’t need written permission to do their job, pool guys don’t need it.

“Do we just let (the city) do this? Do we get a lawyer?”

Bovino and five other area mobile carwash owners sat down with the Review-Journal to vent their frustration over the effort less than a week after the new ordinances passed with near unanimous council support following five hours of deliberations on another issue, a proposed downtown soccer stadium.

Each of the six mobile operators who voiced opposition to the bills are licensed to operate in the state and in Clark County. Some have held a regular business license to operate in Las Vegas for more than a decade.

Most agreed the city should crack down on unlicensed mobile operators but doubted that the creation of a new industry-specific license was the right way to go about it.

Only one of the mobile carwash owners interviewed said they had received a comment card from the city to notify them of the bill’s consideration by the council. City officials said they sent out 276 mailers seeking comment.

A business impact statement published by the city in July reported that officials received only seven responses, feedback which was incorporated into draft operating hours restrictions that have since been loosened so as to allow “greater flexibility for providers.”

All six operators suspected that brick-and-mortar carwash operators were behind the ordinances, but they offered no proof.

“They’ve told us what they want to do, but not why they want to do it,” said Pro Shine owner Paul Johnson. “They’ve said it’s about water quality, but they don’t realize that most of the time, during the summer, what little water I do get on the ground evaporates before it hits the drain.”

City mobile carwash operators are now allowed to operate for three hours at a single location, one of many bill provisions mobile carwash operators say are simply unenforceable.

“Ninety percent of neighborhoods we work in have (homeowners associations),” Mad Mobile Auto Detailing owner Mario Barratta said. “Nobody can legislate on that property. The cops won’t even come in there, unless there is a real crime being committed, because it’s private property.”

There is one exemption to the new rules: car fleets and local car dealerships, which will still be allowed to welcome licensed mobile carwash detailers on site with or without written permission.

The city, which maintains its own fleet of hundreds vehicles, might be one of biggest beneficiaries of that caveat.

Reached for comment Tuesday, city Business Licensing chief Karen Duddlesten couldn’t say who washes the city’s vehicles or how they mitigate the impact of those carwashes on the city’s storm sewer.

Under the ordinances, all city residents — not just mobile carwash operators — are barred from washing their car on public rights of way.

It remained unclear whether the rules — which apply to all carwash business “conducted from other than a fixed place of business” — might hamper fundraisers held by Little League teams, high school booster clubs or other nonprofit groups.

Councilman Bob Coffin, who has said nonprofits will not be targeted under the new rules, said he hasn’t heard any complaints about the ordinance. He added that the city has no immediate plans to revisit the measure, noting that to his knowledge the effort “isn’t putting anybody out of business.”

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven.