EDITORIAL: ‘Zappos saved the zoo’

Seldom do real-life dramas so perfectly write themselves for the screen. If the recent struggle and triumph of Moapa’s modest Roos-N-More zoo isn’t a movie on The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon or Lifetime by the end of the year, the writers and producers who constantly prowl Las Vegas for material have no heart.

Spoiler alert: It comes with an impossibly happy ending, which played out the weekend of Feb. 15-16 at the downtown Las Vegas headquarters of online retailer Zappos.com. By turning the former City Hall building into a zoo for two days, Zappos helped Roos-N-More raise the $250,000 it needed to reopen its rural campus, which was shut down seven weeks ago by code enforcement officers from Clark County and the Southern Nevada Health District.

Although the nonprofit zoo had operated north of Las Vegas for about four years under a special-use permit and brought great joy to all who made the drive, the inspectors determined Roos-N-More could no longer have visitors unless it made expensive improvements, including a commercial septic system with flush toilets. Husband and wife veterinarians Jay and Valerie Holt suddenly lost the revenue stream that kept their camels, llamas, kangaroos and other animals fed and healthy. Talk about over-the-top villainy.

Thanks to coverage from this newspaper and other media outlets, offers of support immediately followed. One of the most generous offers came from Zappos, which promised to match up to $50,000 in donations from visitors. However, as reported by the Review-Journal’s Henry Brean, when public support from ticket sales, donations and gift shop purchases topped $150,000, Zappos decided to double its match and give Roos-N-More all the money it needed to rebuild and reopen.

“If the community was to come up that strong … we decided to meet them the rest of the way,” said Zappos’ Steven Bautista.

“We came into this weekend smelling like a port-a-potty and came out smelling like a rose garden,” Ms. Holt said. “Zappos saved the zoo. A million thanks go out to them.”

The feel-good weekend was not without intervention from the regulatory state. Roos-N-More was subjected to a surprise inspection from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It passed.

This story reminds us not only of the positive energy and community spirit Zappos has brought downtown, but of the public’s intolerance for arbitrary and heavy-handed crackdowns by bureaucrats. A wrong has been righted.

We can’t wait for the Roos-N-More movie. It will have a hard time measuring up to reality.