Las Vegas officials trying to staunch downtown stench

LAS VEGAS - Something is rotting in Las Vegas, and it's raising a rank scent in downtown alleys.

And city officials, fearful the smell will hamper the area's economic resurgence, have launched an assault on the stench.

"People are walking downtown and holding their noses," said David Semenza, Las Vegas' neighborhood response manager. "What good is redevelopment when you have this stench?"

Since April, crews from the city's Rapid Response Team have spent thousands of dollars a week clearing out debris from alleys and spraying them with an odor-eating enzyme-producing bacteria.

In the smell war, city officials have come up with a sort of olfactory map of the alleys, which have been divided into three malodorous zones.

The stinky problems involve everything from human feces to food scraps being dug out of the containers and left on the ground by the rummaging homeless. People peeing wherever they please has also contributed to noisome aroma.

The enzyme, which the maker claims is nontoxic and biodegradable, has an odor akin to laundry detergent, some say. Others, like Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell, whose nose the city relied on in choosing among several deodorizers in tests during December and January, describe it as antiseptic.

Las Vegas has focused on alleys in 21 blocks in an area encompassing the Fremont Street Experience and the planned Entertainment District. The $7,000-a-month cost of deodorizing downtown is an investment in redevelopment, according to the city.

The deodorizing of downtown is scheduled to end July 1, just as the summer heat intensifies.

"It's very expensive but it's part of what a city has to do," Mayor Oscar Goodman said. "You don't want noxious odors to affect the experience of people who come downtown."

So far, the plan seems to be working.

Richard Sturman, owner of Las Vegas Gem & Jewelry, said the alley leading to his shop smells better.

But, he said, there are other solutions the city could try.

"They could get rid of the guys pissing and defecating; that gets rid of the odor too," he said.