Go behind the scenes of our investigation into Reno’s epic strip club fight…

…with insight and analysis of every Season 2 episode from reporter Anjeanette Damon.

_________

Part 1:  Episodes 1-3

Anjeanette explains: 

• How she uncovered Reno City Attorney Karl Hall’s possible conflict of interest and why it matters.
• Why Reno police left Kamy Keshmiri’s strip clubs alone for ten years.
• How she first met the dancer Stephanie and Ponderosa Hotel resident Velma Shoals.

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Part 2: Episodes 4-5

Anjeanette examines: 

• The promise of New Reno and whether it stacks up to reality.
• How “New Reno” jobs inside Tesla’s Gigafactory compare to “Old Reno” jobs inside Reno’s strip clubs.
• Tesla’s distant relationship with journalists.
• How she pieced together Gigafactory injury data and discovered the dangers that dancers face in the back rooms of Reno’s strip clubs.

_________

Part 3: Episode 6

Anjeanette examines: 

• The outcome of the strip club vote.
• The “winners” and “losers” of the strip club fight.
• What the strip club decision means for the city’s future.
• Her takeaways and favorite moments from reporting this story.

_________

 

 

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Transcript

Robin Amer: Hey everyone. Robin here. By now, you know the drill. Because this season of The City is about strip clubs, it’s not suitable for everyone, especially kids. This episode includes explicit language, including explicit conversations about sex. OK, here’s the show. 

Production team member: Previously on The City… 

Judge Tammy Riggs: We all know that this is a theater. You know, the name of the game is to step up to the line and not go over it. I think that’s true. 

Stephanie: You know, it’s all in the tape. Like, maybe’s not yes. And so I was really confident.

Abbi Whitaker: I appreciate Old Reno, but I also am going to fight tooth and nail for this town to move into the future. 

Lance Gilman: You run the business quietly, out of town. You’re not by a school or a church or any of the public facilities, and you stay below the sagebrush.

Kamy Keshmiri: So they purposely picked Sunday night, Monday morning, knowing the club was closed, to go down in the basement. For—we have that bug down there that we saw, right? Did you show her the bug?

Robin Amer: If there’s anything we’ve learned about Reno this season, it’s that this city is not afraid to reinvent itself. 

When the silver mines went bust, Reno didn’t sit around and wait for a new mine to open. It became the one place in the country you could get a quick divorce. Then, one of the few places in the country you could legally gamble. 

And more recently, after the foreclosure crisis hit, Reno started to shed its tired casino town image and became a landing spot for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names.

Reno has this amazing ability to shapeshift—to cut its losses and move on to the next big thing. 

But what does it lose in the process? In our Season 2 finale, reporter Anjeanette Damon and producer Fil Corbitt take a trip back to the beginning of the city itself.

Anjeanette Damon: Fil and I are wandering through a place few Renoites have been: the quiet, dark tunnels that run underneath the city’s oldest commercial building, the Reno Mercantile.

Anjeanette Damon: So we’re in the tunnel now, or we’re under—? 

Jeremme McGilvray: We’re in the tunnel, yeah. We’re actually out under the sidewalk right now. 

Anjeanette Damon: Our tour guide is Jeremme McGilvray, a general contractor who’s working on the building above us.

The air is still and musty. We can see only as far as our flashlights shine. Dust particles float through the light.

Fil and I carefully pick our way around fallen bricks and wooden beams.

Jeremme McGilvray: And you can see, I mean, it was, it was really interesting, with these barrel-arched brick ceilings and everything else. But if you look at the columns, that there’s just—

Fil Corbitt: Oh, whoa. 

Jeremme McGilvray: There’s nothing left of the columns there. 

Fil Corbitt: Yeah, what are those? Is that—

Jeremme McGilvray: That’s steel, and it’s steel pipes, but you can see how it’s actually crushed and rotted out and just collapsing.

Fil Corbitt: Wow. 

Jeremme McGilvray: So… 

Anjeanette Damon: The once-grand, two-story brick building above us dates back to 1872, when Reno was still a mining town. 

The ground floor was a general store, and Jeremme says that merchants kept everything from ice to booze to dynamite in these tunnels below the street. 

The general store was there for more than a century, closing in the 1970s. In true Reno fashion, it then became a pawn shop. Then, storage for the casino next door.

We come to what looks like the end of the tunnel—or so we think.

Fil Corbitt: That’s, like, a cement barrier that just ends the tunnel right there?

Jeremme McGilvray: It actually, it’s a giant cement pier that’s here. You can actually get around it. Back behind it, there’s like a little vault room—

Fil Corbitt: Oh, interesting. 

Jeremme McGilvray: —that locks from the inside.

Fil Corbitt: Whoa. 

Anjeanette Damon: What?!

Jeremme McGilvray: [Laughs] You’re welcome to slide around there and take a look at it if you want.

Anjeanette Damon: Fil and I squeeze through the small gap between that giant cement pier and the wall of the building to find this tiny room built nearly 150 years ago. It’s maybe four feet wide by eight feet long. It has the same barrel-arched brick ceiling as the tunnel outside.

And Jeremme’s right—the rusty metal door locks from the inside. 

Fil Corbitt: Oh, wow. That’s crazy.

Anjeanette Damon: We stand in this small room, laying our hands on the cold brick walls, exploring the ceiling with our flashlights. 

Fil Corbitt: Can you describe the smell?

Anjeanette Damon: It’s… [Deep inhale] I mean, there’s been no ventilation down here, I imagine, forever, really. It’s just still, cold, damp.

Fil Corbitt: And that’s really rare in Reno.

Anjeanette Damon: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It smells like some old place on the East Coast or Europe.

Anjeanette Damon: It’s like Fil and I are being let in on one of Reno’s oldest secrets. These tunnels existed before almost anything else in Reno. The Mercantile Building is in the heart of downtown, just a block away from Reno’s iconic “Biggest Little City” Arch and less than a mile away from the Wild Orchid. Both of us have walked right over this silent vault so many times, never knowing what was just beneath our feet. 

In a city that has reinvented itself over and over, letting go of bits of its past at every turn, it’s so rare to experience something from Reno’s earliest days.

And it’s not something that Fil or I or anyone else will be able to experience again.

Jeremme McGilvray is here because he’s overseeing the building’s demolition. By the time you hear this, the Reno Mercantile building and these tunnels will be gone.

Anjeanette Damon: Upstairs, construction crews are already busy dismantling the building piece by piece.

Jeremme McGilvray: So right now, what you can hear is, they’re breaking the bricks apart so they can remove the bricks one at a time.

Anjeanette Damon: The Mercantile building has been left empty for too long—more than three decades. The support structures are collapsing. The masonry is crumbling. There’s no way to save it. 

Jeremme McGilvray: We are pulling, essentially deconstructing the buildings so we can save as much of the materials as possible to reuse it in the new building that we’re putting up. 

Anjeanette Damon: They’re tearing down both the Mercantile building and the Old Reno Casino next door. Yeah, it’s literally called the Old Reno Casino.  

The neighboring Whitney Peak Hotel owns the building and it’s looking to expand. The new building, built with pieces of the old building, will be a 100-room extended-stay hotel—more rooms for the Tesla and Panasonic executives staying in Reno while they oversee work at the Gigafactory. 

Jeremme McGilvray: I have been heavily involved in changes that we’ve seen in downtown Reno over the last ten years. And I think they’re good. I think it’s as much as everybody’s sad to see it go, it’s something good for downtown. It’s good for the city.

Anjeanette Damon: From the beginning of this story, I’ve tried to sort out whether that’s really true—whether all these changes we’ve seen in Reno are actually good for the city.  

That question feels more urgent to me now than ever.

Because on this street corner, in the heart of downtown, Old Reno is being taken apart brick-by-brick to make way for New Reno. 

I’m Anjeanette Damon. From USA TODAY and the Reno Gazette Journal, this is The City.

Act 1

Robin Amer: Alright, let’s take stock of where things stand. 

There’s one last showdown looming between the strip clubs and the Reno City Council. 

After four years, the council has finally scheduled a vote on whether to beef up regulations or kick them out of downtown altogether. 

There’s a lot riding on this vote. 

Depending on the outcome, Velma Shoals and her neighbors at the Ponderosa might be out of a home. Stephanie, the dancer, might be out of a job. And Kamy Keshmiri could see his strip club empire gutted. 

We’ll get to that vote in a few minutes. But first…  

Remember that little black box that Kamy found plugged into the basement of the Wild Orchid? Did the cops really plant a bug in his strip club?

It’s been nagging at Anjeanette. 

Anjeanette Damon: To be honest, it sounds crazy that two cops would come to the Ponderosa Hotel in the middle of the night, ask to be let into the basement, and then surreptitiously plant a bug.

But in the past year, I’ve seen the city do a lot of things that have surprised me. Kamy and his lawyer had pretty much dropped the whole bug thing, but I still wanted to figure it out.

Mark Thierman: Hello?

Anjeanette Damon: Hey Mark, it’s Anjeanette. 

Mark Thierman: What did I do this time? [Laughs]

Anjeanette Damon: I don’t think anything yet—

Mark Thierman: Oh good. [Laughs] 

Anjeanette Damon: —but I have yet to do more reporting. [Laughs]

Anjeanette Damon: Mark Thierman’s had this little black box in his filing cabinet since Kamy found it. I ask him if anything’s happened with it. 

Mark Thierman: Nope. 

Anjeanette Damon: No? 

Mark Thierman: It’s just sitting there. I don’t even know what it is.

Anjeanette Damon: I ask him I can take a look at it and he says yes, even offers to drive it to my office at the newspaper

He hands it over, and Fil and I turn to the Internet to do as much sleuthing as we can.

Anjeanette Damon: [Typing] NetGear N300 Wi-Fi router, model WNR-2000-V5. Well, looks like it’s a $35 router at Target. 

Anjeanette Damon: Kamy said it was broadcasting a Wifi signal that no one at the club recognized. The signal name was “Baloo,” like the bear in the Jungle Book.

Next I do something that most tech security experts would advise against. I plug the device into my computer. 

Fil and I wait a moment and then…

Anjeanette Damon: Ah! Baloo! There it is. That’s it.

Fil Corbitt: That is it. It’s got a lock on it. So there is a password. I mean, you should try “password” for sure. 

Anjeanette Damon: Well that’s what it says it is. 

Anjeanette Damon: Sadly, the password was not “password.”

Anjeanette Damon: Alright. I think we need to find an expert. [Laughs]

Fil Corbitt: [Laughs]

 

Todd Shipley: So, I retired as detective sergeant with the city of Reno Police Department, where I was running the Financial Crimes and the Computer Crimes Unit.

Anjeanette Damon: That’s retired Reno police Sgt. Todd Shipley. I met Shipley nearly 20 years ago, when I was a cops reporter. 

Today, Shipley is a cyber security expert who trains law enforcement officers on how to investigate crimes on the darknet. I’ve told him very little about the device from the Wild Orchid. I want to capture his initial impression without biasing him. 

He was very nice to play along and stops by the newsroom. 

Anjeanette Damon: OK, ready?

Anjeanette Damon: I pull out the box and he recognizes it instantly. 

Todd Shipley: So it’s just a little Netgear router, which is the obvious part of it. And it was plugged into their network?

Anjeanette Damon: Shipley says he sees this a lot: someone using a cheap router to bypass network security measures to poach some WiFi.

But could a little router like this be used to spy on someone—to intercept data, for instance?

Shipley, says sure, but not easily. That would take some sophisticated set up. 

At this point, I decide to just give him the full story. I tell him about the cops walking through the Wild Orchid basement in the middle of the night and Kamy finding the router.

Anjeanette Damon: And they’re like, “What is this? Did the police put this here and are the police spying on us?” [Long Pause][Laughs]

Todd Shipley: [Laughs] You want to, you you want me to respond to that, don’t you? 

Anjeanette Damon: If you want to. [Laughs] I mean, yeah. 

Todd Shipley: [Pauses] That’s a pretty big stretch. Becau—, because personally, this is not the way of it. That’s not the way I would attack it. 

Anjeanette Damon: Shipley says it would be too risky for the police to install a bug like that, even if they did have a proper warrant. 

And then there’s the actual data collection. This wouldn’t be just listening to a phone call. The police would need the expertise to intercept and then interpret the data they were collecting. Shipley doesn’t believe the Reno police have the resources to do that kind of thing. 

Todd Shipley: No. I can almost 100 percent guarantee you that that’s not what’s occurring, you know, because it’s too complicated on their end to do this.

Anjeanette Damon: The most likely scenario? Someone’s just tryin’ to steal WiFi.

Todd Shipley: So who does their actual IT stuff?

Anjeanette Damon: Just a guy that lives in the Ponderosa.

Todd Shipley: [Laughs] So they don’t really have anyone that does IT? So the most likely person that did this…

Anjeanette Damon: …Is that guy.

Todd Shipley: Be the first place I’d go, you know? 

Anjeanette Damon: I did ask. And that IT guy—the guy living at the Ponderosa and offering his skills for a break on his rent—he didn’t want to talk to me. 

So I still have no idea where this router came from. But it’s probably not a bug. 

And, I know, this whole thing with the little black box feels a little silly now.  But this is where we are with the city of Reno. 

In 2007, police raided Kamy’s club mere hours after he filed a lawsuit against them. Ten years later, the city attorney secretly hired a private investigator to spy on him. 

For a decade, the city let slide its oversight duties, doing just cursory-level inspections Then suddenly, when there’s a political move afoot, it deploys its entire arsenal of inspectors against the strip clubs. 

I can understand why Kamy might be suspicious.

Robin Amer: While Anjeanette was busy investigating the bug, Mark and Kamy had their hands full preparing for their long awaited showdown with the Reno City Council. That showdown, after the break.

Act 2

Robin Amer: This fight has created a lot of uncertainty for people who live and work in Reno. And at times, it has seemed as if the city’s very identity has hung in the balance. 

But progress has not waited for this fight to be over. Since we first started reporting this season, Reno has added more than 15,000 new jobs. Financial tech and blockchain companies have opened new headquarters. And developers have erected new condos all over Midtown. 

But now, the Reno City Council is finally poised to make a decision on the fate of the strip club—a decision that will have ripple effects far beyond the Wild Orchid. 

Here’s Anjeanette.

Anjeanette Damon: It’s April 24, 2019, and I’m standing in the busy lobby outside the city council chambers with Mark and Kamy.

Today, we will finally find out just what the council is going to do with the strip clubs.

Anjeanette Damon: What do you think’s going to happen in there today?

Kamy Keshmiri: You know, the way these meetings go, I couldn’t tell you, honestly. I have no idea. We come here, we fight, and we’ll fight, and we’ll fight. I can just tell you this: We will fight as long as we will fight.

Anjeanette Damon: Yes, he used the word “fight” five times. I ask him, are you scared?

Kamy Keshmiri: You know what, I’m not scared. No, no. I’m not scared. This has only made me stronger, actually. This whole experience has made me stronger, tougher, and wiser. We are going to be a political force in this city. All this has done is woke us up to where we will be, what is it, the Koch [Kotch] brothers of politics? 

Mark Thierman: [Off-mic] Yeah, Koch [Coke]. 

Kamy Keshmiri: The Koch [Coke] brothers is how you pronounce it? You know, I was the best at everything I’ve done in my life, and I’m going to be the best at this. In politics, we will be the number one group, whatever you call it. Whatever they call it in politics. We will be the top dog.

Anjeanette Damon: Back in our first episode, Kamy vowed to take revenge on the powers aligned against him. I think this is what he meant. 

He desperately wants to be a force in this city—to preserve in the New Reno the status and power he achieved in the Old Reno, first as a sports star and then the city’s strip club kingpin. 

Now he’s trying his hand at politics. After Reno’s elected city attorney Karl Hall hired private eyes to spy on Kamy’s clubs, Kamy backed Hall’s opponent. 

During the campaign, Kamy used the digital sign at the Wild Orchid to describe Hall as “creepy, worthless, wasteful, sneaky, sexist, incompetent, and inept.” 

At the time, Karl Hall shrugged it off with a joke, saying at least the sign wasn’t showing scantily clad women anymore.

But Kamy’s gambit with the sign didn’t work. Hall won re-election.

Kamy did have more success helping to get a new city councilwoman elected—one who supported his cause. With Kamy’s backing, she replaced a councilman who was adamant about kicking strip clubs out of downtown. 

In essence, Kamy helped flip one vote on the council. Would it be enough? 

I walk into council chambers and the crowd is thin. Unlike previous council meetings, the room isn’t full of angry strippers and Ponderosa residents. And people like Mike Kazmierski and Abbi Whitaker are nowhere to be seen.

I suspect that the key people involved already know how this is going to play out and so they’ve told their armies to stay home. 

But I have no idea how this vote is going to go down.

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve takes up the strip club agenda item.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: Let the record reflect the city council opening the public hearing at this time. 

Anjeanette Damon: At least one club opponent isn’t giving up: Melissa Holland, the anti-sex trafficking activist. She’s rallied some of her volunteers to come with her to council.

Three small children stand against a back wall holding signs that say “Value. Honor. Respect.” And, “Please keep adult businesses out of my view.”

She gives it one last shot, trying to convince the council to move the clubs.

Melissa Holland: There are illegal activities taking place within them. They are not self-regulating to make any of it better. They are not entitled to remain where they are and they are not above the law. 

Anjeanette Damon: And then, for the first time since all of this started, Kamy Keshmiri gets up from his seat and moves toward the podium to publicly address the Reno City Council. 

Over the past year, I have sat with Kamy at his corner table at the Wild Orchid, and in his office at the Ponderosa, and listened to him sustain rants longer than 30 minutes about how unfairly the council has treated him. 

Now, he is face to face with the people he says have persecuted him. Bullied him.

I have no idea what to expect. 

It wasn’t this:

Kamy Keshmiri: Well, Kamy Keshmiri, proprietor of the Wild Orchid and Spice House and Fantasy Girls. I’d just like to say, we did submit a business impact statement at $25 million dollar loss for the dancers, and um, for the dancers, uh… Sorry, I’m not used to being up here. But we did supply a business impact statement, so I just want to say where, where is that? And did you guys see that? Thank you.

Anjeanette Damon: That’s it. That’s the whole thing. 

Where the heck did all his bravado go? He sounded so nervous, almost timid. 

But Kamy’s decision to leave his bluster at the club and bring a business impact statement instead shows he’s kinda on the ball. He commissioned an accountant to calculate what kind of economic loss the city would suffer if the strip clubs were run out of downtown. 

The report, complete with specific line-item cost estimates, concluded it would cost the city $25 million in lost economic activity—things like earnings for the dancers, profit for the clubs, tax revenue for local government. 

This is actually key. The city wrote its own business impact statement, too—a kind of broad survey of public opinion about the clubs that, unlike Kamy’s statement, included no spreadsheets, no cost estimates, no revenue figures at all. 

And now, Karl Hall’s staff tells the city council that their report proves there would be, quote, no “significant economic burden” on the clubs. But at least one councilman isn’t buying it.

Devon Reese: So where in the record am I to point to when I am subsequently on the stand in a lawsuit that comes, inevitably, because they won’t like the outcome, if that’s what we do? 

Anjeanette Damon: That’s Councilman Devon Reese. Reese is a local lawyer who was appointed to fill a vacancy just two months before this meeting. 

He knows that if the city moves forward with the proposal to kick out the clubs, it is likely going to face a bevy of expensive lawsuits. And he fears going into court with such an empty report. 

Devon Reese: Where is the record that makes that case for the “no economic impact” or no burden on the businesses? Where is that?

Anjeanette Damon: Since Reese’s appointment, Kamy and Mark have gone to work trying to win him over to their side, giving him a tour of the clubs and arguing the council is on a vendetta and attacking civil rights.

From the sound of it, Kamy may have made some headway with Reese, who starts arguing with the deputy city attorney, calling her out on the city’s mediocre report.

Devon Reese: So is there a financial analysis? Are there spreadsheets and numbers that tell me what the cost is?

Chandeni Sendall: If that, if that was, if that was necessitated to be conducted, then that potentially could be done, is my understanding.

Devon Reese: I’m asking you what is there at all in its entirety? Just point me to one thing which I would hang my hat on that would be a part of that impact.

Anjeanette Damon: The attorney couldn’t do it. The city’s report had none of that detail—no evidence to back up a claim that these new laws would do no financial harm to the clubs.

This is not an impressive showing by Karl Hall’s office. Hall’s staff has had four years to work on this. Four years!  

They’ve hired a private eye. They’ve been gathering evidence to show that the strip clubs are bad actors. They’re prosecuting Stephanie for responding “maybe” to an undercover cop.

There’s barely a reference to any of this in the public testimony. It looks like the city’s case against the strip clubs is falling apart. 

Someone proposes delaying the vote to give the city attorney’s office more time to get its act together. 

But Councilwoman Neoma Jardon isn’t willing to do that.

Neoma Jardon: I don’t want to leave here today without giving clear direction. It’s been four years. We need to move past this, and whatever that “past this” is needs to happen today, in my opinion.

Anjeanette Damon: Jardon is the one who started all of this back in 2015 with the request for a temporary ban on new strip clubs downtown. But by this point, she’s fed up.

Neoma Jardon: This was not in any way shape or form in my intent of doing that to drive any business out of business or out of its location. So somehow in the last four years, it went from a pause, so we could have detailed discussions about what we want to see. Where on the go-forward, it morphed into a private investigation not initiated by this body, that we didn’t bring forward. This council did not ask for it. We did not initiate it. So I just want to get four years ago where we started from and where we appear to be today, for those that are wondering how we got to this very complex, somewhat convoluted spot. Um, so I just, I felt, Madam Mayor, that I needed to get that on the record.

Anjeanette Damon: Jardon doesn’t want to kick existing strip clubs out of downtown. To her, using government power to shut down private businesses is a really big deal in any context. 

But she doesn’t want to leave the clubs alone, either. Remember, it’s not just relocating the clubs that’s on the agenda here. The council also must also decide whether to put more restrictions on how they operate.

And that’s just what it does. 

One after another, the council votes to: 

Ban dancers younger than 21.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: All those in favor say “aye.” 

Council members: Aye. 

Anjeanette Damon: Ban private back rooms.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: Motion passes. Back at you, madame clerk.

Anjeanette Damon: Require brighter lighting and more video surveillance.

Mayor Hillary Schieve:  All those in favor say “aye.”

Anjeanette Damon: And require background checks on all employees at the club, not just the dancers.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: All those in favor say “aye.” 

Council members: Aye. 

Anjeanette Damon: With that, the council has just imposed a bunch of new restrictions on the strip clubs.

Now, it’s time for the council to decide whether to kick the clubs out of downtown. 

This is the moment that will decide whether Velma and John will have to leave their homes, whether Stephanie will lose her job, whether Kamy will have to leave the corner he’s been on for decades. 

Whether New Reno will leave room for Old Reno as the city continues to change.

Mayor Hillary Schieve makes it clear where she stands on the issue.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: OK, so one of the things I would say about location—and I have not wavered on this, my position has been very, very clear—I want them in places where they don’t become out of sight, out of mind. I want them in places where they’re well-lit. I want them in places where they’re very well-regulated.

Anjeanette Damon: The mayor wants those bright gaudy strip clubs smack in the middle of downtown, where it’s easier to keep an eye on them.

And I’m not hearing a lot of dissent from the rest of the council.

The mayor calls for a final vote on whether to let the clubs stay downtown.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: So I have a motion from our Vice Mayor Duerr and I have a second from, uh, Councilwoman Weber. All those in favor say “aye.”

Council members: Aye.

Jenny Brekhus: I’m opposed.

Mayor Hillary Schieve: Motion carries. 

Anjeanette Damon: And with that, Kamy gets to keep his clubs right where they are. 

Jenny Brekhus is the only nay vote. The Wild Orchid is in her ward and she still doesn’t think it’s a good fit for the neighborhood.

This about face by the council—this seemingly sharp pivot away from its crackdown—might be stunning if it weren’t so, well, ordinary. This kind of thing happens all the time in local government. 

There’s a groundswell of energy to enact some grand, sweeping change, then the bureaucracy of actually creating that change collapses under its own weight, or even it’s own ineptitude.

Here, it’s been four years since the strip club moratorium was first floated in council. Since then, two lawmakers have been replaced. A key staff member who worked on this project has actually died. The air has gone out of this balloon.

So the Wild Orchid isn’t going anywhere. It will remain a bulwark against gentrification, a monolith against sushi burrito joints, a glittering beacon of vice that built Reno in the first place.

Or it won’t. 

Maybe one day Kamy will succumb to developers dangling big checks in front of his eyes, and give up his corner to New Reno.

This is a living, breathing city undergoing a period of tremendous change. And change doesn’t necessarily discriminate. 

Maybe Kamy will get bought out. Or maybe the grand Tesla experiment in the desert will go bust. 

Regardless, people living in the Ponderosa Hotel, people like the Tesla workers making a go of it in the new factory, the women earning a living in the strip clubs, they’ll have to continue navigating Reno’s reinvention. 

The council vote didn’t change that.

Robin Amer: After the break, Anjeanette checks in on Kamy and Velma and Stephanie to see how they’re faring in the New Reno. 

ACT 3 

Robin Amer: OK, let’s go back to Anjeanette:

Anjeanette Damon: A week after the city council vote, I head back to the Wild Orchid. 

It’s a Thursday night around 9 p.m., so it’s not real busy yet. The manager, Jeremy Cronick, meets me at the door as usual. 

This time, he’s carrying a microphone too. Turns out he’s doubling as the DJ tonight. He’s in his typical joke-y mood, making good use of that microphone to introduce me as the next dancer on stage.

Jeremy Cronick: Round One with Anjeanette. Just kidding. This is Round One with Hennessy. [Laughter] Anjeanette, you’re up next.

Anjeanette Damon: That’s the photographer from my newspaper you hear laughing in the background. At least he got a kick out of Jeremy’s joke. 

But one of the strippers didn’t. She demanded to know who this new girl Anjeanette was. 

I’m like, “No, hi, it’s me, I’m a journalist!”

Kamy’s sitting at his back corner table. I find him in his normal mood, at least the one we’ve gotten to know over the past year: aggrieved. Despite his apparent win at council, he’s still steaming.

He can’t get over the new restrictions: the ban on private rooms, the extra lighting, the video surveillance. Also, now that he’s back on his own turf, his bravado has returned.

Kamy Keshmiri: It’s like, you’re the bad kid in the class and you didn’t do anything wrong, which, you’re going to sit there with a dunce hat on while all the other students get this, you know, and you—what did you do wrong? [Fades under]

Anjeanette Damon: Kamy sees this as the new normal. City inspectors and police officers constantly crawling through his club. 

This is not Old Reno anymore—the one that left him alone all these years.

Kamy Keshmiri: None of these people have spent five minutes in a strip club and they’re making the rules about a business they haven’t even spent five minutes in. How’s that going to work? Just so Joe Henry can have all the rules. This Joe Henry, we had a meeting…[Fades under] 

Anjeanette Damon: Joe Henry is the head of Reno code enforcement. He’s a guy Kamy will be seeing a lot under this new regime. 

Kamy sees him as the next bully he has to fight.

Kamy Keshmiri: He sat there for two hours and eye fucked me for two hours. For two hours! I’m sitting here like this, this is a guy who works for the city, and he’s looking at me like he wants to beat the shit out of me for two hours. You tell me how professional that is.

Anjeanette Damon: I’ve heard a lot of Kamy rants over the last year. This one puts them all to shame.

Kamy Keshmiri: Like what is this guy’s—? What? I’m like, did I screw his girlfriend? I mean I—who is this guy? And they’re like, “Oh, this the guy that’s running enforcement.” I’m like, “What?! That’s, that’s great.”

Anjeanette Damon: Kamy gets to keep his clubs in their profitable locations downtown, but he’s not willing to give up the fight. He’s planning to go to court to fight to keep his back rooms. And he’s already gunning for the next election. 

He wants to target Councilwoman Jenny Brekhus, the lone vote against him, and take another shot at Karl Hall.

Kamy Keshmiri: I don’t care for how much money I got to spend. I’m not going to be barbecued at city council anymore. And Jenny and Karl Hall are two public enemy No. 1s for us. That’s how I look at it.  We came close with Karl. Hopefully with Jenny we have a better—I mean, all I can do is try, right? 

Anjeanette Damon: And this is how we leave Kamy: still a petulant king of his fiefdom, still refusing to change even as his city changes around him, still trying to hold on to his power as Reno’s reverence of vice continues to slip. 

The titans of Old Reno and those of New Reno pay little mind to the people who must find their way in the changing landscape—people like Velma Shoals and her neighbor John, living in the Ponderosa Hotel. 

With the Wild Orchid staying put, John and Velma are out of immediate danger. Kamy is no longer threatening to double their rent. But that doesn’t mean they’re in the clear for good. 

New Reno wasn’t really designed with them in mind. And life isn’t easy for them now. 

I got a taste of that the day I took a trip with them to get groceries at one of the local food pantries.

I’m waiting for Velma at the bus stop about a block away from the Ponderosa. The day is sweltering.

I catch sight of her walking toward me, pulling a hand cart behind her that’s almost as tall as she is. 

Velma Shoals: These carts is our life line. These granny carts. I sure couldn’t carry nothing home. I’m too little. 

Anjeanette Damon: She relies on this granny cart. It not only carries her groceries, it’s a crutch.  She has a bum hip that can give out without warning. Her cart has caught her more than once.

Velma has come prepared for the heat. She carries a little spray bottle full of water with a couple drops of alcohol and lavender oil to help keep her cool. She sprays down her legs a couple times while we wait for the bus.

Anjeanette Damon: Did you want to stand in the shade at all?

Velma Shoals: Oh, I’m OK. Honey, I’m used to the sun. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. But when you have a choice, it feels good.

Anjeanette Damon: John joins us at the bus stop for the journey to the food pantry. He tells me to prepare myself for a long afternoon. 

Heading to the food pantry isn’t like dropping by the grocery store. It’s a process.

John: Whole three hours. Sure. You don’t get home till 2:30. It’s only a quarter after 11 right now.

Anjeanette Damon: First, there’s a bus ride. 

Anjeanette Damon: Is this our bus?

Velma Shoals: Yep. Yep, this is it. [Bus screeches up] 

Anjeanette Damon: It takes us about two miles south, dropping us in front of Reno’s more lavish hotel casinos. One night here could run you almost as much as Velma spends on rent in a month. 

After the bus, you gotta walk about a quarter mile to the pantry, past a liquor store, a place that sells CBD oil, some dilapidated apartments, and a laundromat. 

Velma pulls her cart behind her the whole way. We arrive at an older office building. This is not really where I’m expecting to find a food pantry. It looks like a place where an accountant or a dentist might have an office. It’ll be another hour before the food pantry opens.

John: I’m going to go into that shade. I’m going to go sit on that.

Velma Shoals: OK. Oh, it is shadier over there. We go—right down there, it’s shadier. 

Anjeanette Damon: It’s almost 100 degrees out—so hot the soles of my shoes are starting to melt on the black asphalt. 

But this isn’t a trip Velma can skip. This food pantry isn’t open very often.  

Velma Shoals: It’s a fair amount of work, but it’s even worse when you ain’t got nothing to eat. That’s where it’s a fair amount. Even though you have a place to live, you still gotta eat. 

Anjeanette Damon: As we wait, Velma tells me stories of growing up in Oklahoma: picking cotton, waitressing, working in nursing homes. 

The line for the food bank continues to grow until there are dozens of people in line: elderly people, young couples, moms with their children in tow. 

People who sometimes seem almost invisible to those making decisions about the city. 

Velma Shoals: It’s quite a few, honey. You’d be shocked at the hungry folks in town. Hungry people. Yeah. I’ve seen them when they start there and they go all the way down. Line back up here. Makes a circle.  

Anjeanette Damon: The pantry opens up and Velma snakes her way through the various rooms. 

First, toiletries.

Female food pantry worker: Toothpaste?

Velma Shoals: I’ll take a tube of toothpaste. Thank you, dear. 

Anjeanette Damon: Then canned goods. 

Velma Shoals: Two of these here.

Female food pantry worker: Two of those.

Velma Shoals: Yep. Vienna sausages. 

Anjeanette Damon: Then, food for her two little dogs.

Velma Shoals: [Bag crinkle sounds] Alrighty. Gotta feed my puppies. 

Anjeanette Damon: By the time Velma has made her way through the pantry, her cart is overflowing. She and John gather to redistribute food into each other’s carts and backpacks, balancing the weight for the trek back to the bus stop.

The walk seems much longer when you’re pushing a rattling metal cart heavy with food. This entire trip has taken more than three hours. It’s a blessing, she says, when the bus pulls up to take us home. 

Velma Shoals: We made it, folks. We’re getting this nice, cool air. We all gonna go to bed.

Anjeanette Damon: Velma turns 65 in a few months and will be eligible for senior housing—assistance that would put her in an actual apartment, surrounded by other people her age. But she’s not sure she’ll apply. The waiting list is daunting. 

From Velma’s point of view, she already has a home with a bed in it. She has two feet, and a cart to get her to the food pantries. She’s got her family and her friend, John. Others have it much worse, she reasons.

Velma Shoals: You know, you could be in a wheelchair and not able to get around, and having to put up with the bus driver not wanting you to get your big old wheelchair on the bus. Some of us are still lucky enough to be walking. 

Anjeanette Damon: As the city changes around her, she won’t stop to rest.

Velma Shoals: Even if it hurts, you still walk until you can’t walk no more.

Anjeanette Damon: Stephanie’s mantra could just as well be: You still dance until you can’t dance no more.

She’s still working in the clubs while she’s trying to get her conviction overturned.

But she’s starting to contemplate a life without stripping. She’s even enrolled in the junior college in her hometown. 

I’m back at the Spice House hanging out with her as she goes through her routine getting ready for work: make-up, outfit, perfume.

Stephanie: I always spray myself hella, because, like, I get a lot of compliments on how, like, I smell good. And it makes me, like, more tips, and they want more dances from me. So I always constantly am spraying myself.

Anjeanette Damon: What kind of perfume is that?

Stephanie: This one is Victoria’s Secret Bombshell Nights.

Anjeanette Damon: She heads over to her locker and pulls out a pink and blue bottle of booze. 

Stephanie: And I don’t really drink that much, just like a couple of shots. I’ve had this bottle in here, for like, hella long.

Anjeanette Damon: Is it vodka? 

Stephanie: Yeah. Before this I hardly ever drank, but it just makes it easier to deal, so I’m not, like, boring, But if I take like a shot, like, I’ll be more, like, what they want. [Sound of her taking shot]

Anjeanette Damon: Vodka with a Gatorade chaser. [Laughs]

Anjeanette Damon: Then it’s time to hit the floor.

Stephanie: So, um, I think we’re ready to go downstairs. 

Anjeanette Damon: She immediately recognizes an older guy sitting at the bar, goes and gives him a hug. He looks happy to see Stephanie, but not me and my microphone.

She pulls me aside and leads me into the women’s restroom.

Stephanie: Can you come stand here real quick and I’ll talk to you? ‘Cause, um, that guy, that guy, like, I gave a hug to? He has, like, a lot of money. So, um…. 

Anjeanette Damon: Stephanie has been incredibly gracious, letting me follow her around with a microphone during many intimate moments. 

Stephanie: I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but how much longer did you want to stay?

Anjeanette Damon: It’s a not so subtle hint that it’s time for me to go. 

She gives me a quick hug, leaving a trace of glitter and perfume on my shoulder, and walks away from me, balanced on her seven-inch platform heels, squeezed into her slinky, hot-pink spandex dress, clutching the purse where she’ll hold her tips.

She walks toward the man sitting at the bar who wants her company. 

As with any city trying to reinvent itself, this story is far from over in Reno. But that’s a story for another time. 

Right now, it’s time for Stephanie to dance.

CREDITS

Robin Amer: The City is a production of USA TODAY and is distributed in partnership with Wondery. 

Our show this season was reported and produced by Anjeanette Damon, Fil Corbitt, Kameel Stanley, Taylor Maycan, and me, Robin Amer.

Our editors were Amy Pyle and Matt Doig. Ben Austen is our story consultant. Original music and mixing is by Hannis Brown. Performance on our theme music this season was by Hannis and Indofunk Satish. 

Legal review by Tom Curley. Launch oversight by Shannon Green. 

Additional production by Emily Liu, Sam Greenspan, Wilson Sayre, and Jenny Casas. 

Video production this season by Hannah Gaber, Andy Barron, Ben Spillman, and Sam Gross, with editing oversight by Dave Hamlin and Chris Powers.

Graphics by Janet Loehrke, Veronica Bravo, and Shawn Sullivan. 

Brian Duggan is the Reno Gazette Journal’s executive editor. Chris Davis is our VP for investigations. Scott Stein is our VP of product. Nicole Carroll is our editor in chief. Our president and publisher is Maribel Wadsworth. 

Special thanks to Amalie Nash, Julie Makinen, Silas Lyons, Tim Loehrke, Annette Meade, Stan Wilson, Lorelei Cretu, Mary Nahorniak, Holly Moore, Elizabeth Shell, Emily Brown, Alex Ptachick, Sarab Al-Jijakli, Liz Carboni, and Stephanie Chung. 

I’m Robin Amer. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thecitypod. Or visit our website. That’s thecitypodcast.com. 

Thanks for listening.