Sunrise Glass & Hardware owner has been serving community since 1968

Shelly Plotkin began his career as an iceman, hauling blocks and bags of ice in the days before refrigerators became a common household appliance. Today he's working in another vanishing occupation. He owns and operates Sunrise Glass & Hardware, an independent hardware store at 1482 N. Nellis Blvd.

"I was in the ice and coal business in Milwaukee in the late '40s," Plotkin said. "I delivered ice in the summer and coal in the winter."

After a stint in the U.S. Army from 1949 to 1954, he returned to the coal business for a few more years before opening his first hardware store in Milwaukee. He eventually expanded to three locations before he'd had enough of snow and came to Las Vegas in 1968.

"The people were a factor," Plotkin said. "The people were really nice when we came out here."

Initially, he bought a new Bob's Big Boy restaurant that had gone bankrupt at 808 S. Decatur Blvd.

"We gutted it and made it into a hardware store called Paintin' Place," Plotkin said. "We specialized in paint and floor tile and that sort of thing. We did terrific out there."

In 1980, Arizona Charlie's wanted Paintin' Place's space for parking, so Plotkin sold the property.

He moved to his current location, a building that was originally a barracks on Nellis Air Force Base. Coincidentally, the structure had been moved from the base in 1968, the same year Plotkin came to town.

"I had to go somewhere," Plotkin said. "I thought that the customers would follow, but they didn't. So we had to start all over again."

Two years after the store opened, Clark County began a widening project on Nellis Boulevard that made it hard for Plotkin to build his customer base back up. But he did, and he survived the closure of several other locally owned hardware stores.

"I was in there one day when I started noticing price tags on some of the stock from places that went out of business years ago," said Sunrise-area resident Martin Dupalo. "It's like a little museum of hardware there."

Plotkin picked up stock from several businesses, figuring that many hardware items have a pretty long shelf life.

"I bought stock from Builders Square, Ole's, even Von Tobel's," Plotkin said. "These days our business is about 75 percent glass, so some of that stuff is still around."

There's still something of a rural feel in the neighborhood around the store, and the stock reflects that.

"We sell a lot of stuff the big stores don't," Plotkin said. "We sell firewood, kerosene, racing fuel and pellets for pellet stoves. Now a lot of people use the pellets for kitty litter because it works much better."

He also sells coal, returning in part to the job he held about 60 years ago.

Plotkin has watched other locally owned stores disappear, but he's still hanging on despite the economy.

"Glidden and Sherwin-Williams have eaten up most of the little paint places," Plotkin said "just like Home Depot has eaten up all the hardware stores and Walmart has eaten up all the little Mom-and-Pop stores. We're still here, from 7 to 6, seven days a week."

Contact Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.