It’s 7-11 meets Wal-Mart. The living room in James Gordon’s apartment is arrayed in retail fashion. Upon entering—which only happens after you’ve burrowed into the crime-infested heart of West Las Vegas and entered the gates of a battle-scarred apartment complex on crib at G Street and Monroe—you see stacks of candy. Now and Laters. Cherryheads. “Stuff from your childhood,” Gordon, 36, says.
Hung on racks ringing the ceiling are clothes—sports jerseys, T-shirts, jeans. An array of boots sit on the ground near the door. Urban magazines lie on the floor. There’s also doo-rags and weave hair, DVDs and old-school hip-hop CDs, posters and pain medication. Beverages are in the fridge.
Two years ago, Gordon, who was born in Washington but reared in Vegas, got the idea to sell candy, clothes and other knickknacks to families in the area. A nearby Vons had closed in 2004. The closest supermarket was five miles away. “There are, like, 100 people in the hood selling candy,” he says.
So Gordon hit up Smart & Final and procured clothes from distributors in Los Angeles and New Jersey. In true Sam Walton fashion, he cut prices. A pair of classic Nikes that’d retail for $75 at Foot Locker (they start at $60 on Nike’s website) went for $25 in his store; a Miami Heat jersey for kids for $15 (they start at $36 on the Heat’s website.)
Gordon’s 600-square foot apartment (it’s a rental property, Gordon does everything from collect rents to unclogging stopped toilets) became a hot spot.
Store hours vary—generally when he’s on property doing repairs or running his clothing business; he doesn’t stay there every night but he’s on property nearly every day. Anywhere from a handful to three dozen people a day visit; most want candy or water. “I stay open late,” Gordon says. “I close at 11 or later on holidays.”
All the late-night foot traffic attracted the attention of cops, who suspected something nefarious. Tired of being unduly hassled, Gordon applied for city and state licenses to operate as a home-based business. The certificates arrived two months ago.
“This is an area that needs all the services it can get,” he says.
Outside the gated complex, a handful of people have massed across the street. The cops have left—they’d scolded a property owner to clean up the beer bottles and crack pipes. The area’s dominant form of enterprise is conducted in the open and marked by deft hand-to-hand exchanges of money and drugs.
“You can smell the crack in the air,” says a man who’s come in to buy water. Another patron, a friend of Gordon’s—among many he pays to help with repair work on the apartments and who, in turn, serve as his eyes and ears—laments the senseless gang killings. “Every weekend,” he says.
Gordon gets a pass from area thugs largely, he says, because he’s the closest store for blocks and he’s been willing to stand up for himself and his business. The biggest problem? Knuckleheads migrating from other cities and trying to uproot established West Las Vegas gangs.
“I’ve seen it all out here,” Gordon adds. “Crackheads fighting. Stabbings. Drive-by shootings. My older sister doesn’t even come around here anymore. I remember two gangs were shooting it out right across the street. There were so many bullets that I had to tell my father to get down on the ground,” he says. “I’m trying to show folks that you don’t have to sell dope to drive a Cadillac, Lexus or a Benz. If you work for it, honestly, and do right, God will give you the desires of your heart.”
As for what he drives: a bluish-purple ’88 Cadillac Sedan Deville and a ’94 Cadillac drop-top that changes colors in the sunlight.