If at first the thieves don’t succeed …

The Ace pawnshop has hung on, paying its taxes and absurdly jacked-up license fees, for SIXTY YEARS. On the other hand, the city's "subsidize our buddies" seizure-for-private-development schemes go bankrupt after a year or three, like clockwork. (See: NeoNecropolis -- the "On the Beach" set that replaced the downtown's last grocery store -- and the Big Empty Parking Garage across Fremont Street, which used to be a group of thriving small businesses called the Pappas Block.)

So let's kick out ... the nasty pawn shop!

Wouldn't want to ruin the image of a city known for 24-hour gambling dens, call girls and ... well ... pawnbrokers, who are now the stars of multiple "reality" TV shows giving Las Vegas tens of millions of dollars worth of free publicity. People obviously don't want THOSE "low-end" guys around, making collateralized loans to working-class Joes who the bailed-out, walking-dead, fancy-pants banks won't help.

Why, if Las Vegans wanted characters like those around, local residents would, you know ... patronize them, which might keep them in business without government subsidies for, I don't know ... decades.