Chapter 7 Bankruptcy May Be Forced on Artisan Hotel in Las Vegas
The IRS is cracking down on a delinquent off-strip Las Vegas hotel, and is trying to force it into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The Artisan hotel bills itself as “Las Vegas’ first small, luxurious, non-gaming boutique hotel.” In the lobby, elaborate paintings hang from the ceiling of this local landmark, among the elegant chandeliers, columns and stone floors.
Considered a hidden jewel by many in Nevada, the Artisan is facing hard times nowadays, as investigations have exposed a number of problems with the quirky hideaway.
The Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on the hotel, and according to 13 Action News Las Vegas, the IRS “wants a federal judge to force the hotel’s owners to liquidate their assets which could force the hotel to close its doors.”
Management problems and questions about financial misdeeds have brought the Artisan under the spotlight of late.
First came the hotel’s pest infestation problem. A pest removal specialist reported rats and roaches in the hotel, as well as reports of bed bugs.
Shortly thereafter, health inspectors found mouse droppings in the hotel’s kitchen, as well as other health code violations in the bar and in guest rooms. 13 Action News reported “bugs in the booze, mold in the ice machines, spoiled food, dirty kitchen equipment and soiled mattresses.”
While management at the Artisan filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year, the IRS claims that even since then there has been gross mismanagement of hotel finances. The IRS was investigating the hotel, and the findings were reported recently via court records.
According to the IRS, hotel owner Doug Dasilva hasn’t been paying his taxes, and that “he hasn’t filed a federal employment tax return or made any employment tax deposits since filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy a year ago.”
As a result, the IRS is asking the courts to force the Artisan into Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would require them to liquidate most of its assets to pay off creditors.
The Artisan has also struggled to pay employees, with one former bartender claiming that employees had to race to the bank in order to deposit paychecks while funds remained. Even then, said Carey Ujhely, “for most of us, the checks just stopped coming at all. We never really knew what was going on except that we weren’t getting paid.”
Former employees could be counted as among the creditors that the Artisan will need to liquidate to repay if the court does force the hotel into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
While 13 Action News could not contact Dasilva for the most recent report, in the past he had acknowledged that he owed people money, and that he was making a true effort to return the hotel to profitable operation so that he could pay them back.
The IRS, on the other hand, feels that rehabilitation is unlikely, and that the only remaining option for the hotel is liquidation.
In what is not a promising sign, a co-owner of the hotel, Ninette Dasilva, was recently found guilty of passing a bad check to a car mechanic. She has written more than a hundred such bad checks since 1994, and there is a felony warrant out for her arrest.