Business and the business of education in Las Vegas is the most restrictive and oppressive that we have experienced out of the five western states in which we operate.
We are a private, for-profit private school. We have 3- and 4-year-old classes as well as K-8 grades, that therefore puts us under the close scrutiny of child care agencies. Recently the Clark County/North Las Vegas transferred the monitoring of their North Las Vegas child care centers under the Metropolitan Police Department. They issued a warning that if my establishment were to have even a minor clerical error or a refrigerator off the exact degrees the licensor and the director would both be sentenced to 6 months in jail and $1000 fine. The codes include hundreds of finite details. Thankfully, due to the resistance of our industry in the City, the agency was taken out of the local jurisdiction and put under the State of Nevada. What happens in the future is questionable. Things had gotten so terrible that we really wrestled with whether we could survive there.
I have known of various businesses that started in Las Vegas and had to quit or sell because of the preponderance of over-regulation. And in our own experiences of setting up business, Las Vegas has been the most difficult for us—out of Utah, Idaho, Texas, and the Bay area in California—for obtaining legitimate inspections, use permits, and building permits. For example, the waste management company fabricated that we over-loaded waste bins and demanded under threat tripling our monthly costs. With cameras we were able to dissuade them; nevertheless, similar events are always appearing when working with contractors and inspectors, and licensors.
Barbara B. Baker is the CEO of the Challenger School Corporate Office.
