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.