Las Vegas Weekly

June 21, 2010 · 8:46 AM

Exclusive: Pawn Stars cast to take show on road, tackles parking tickets

By Robin Leach

Mayor Oscar Goodman, center, and the cast of Pawn Stars.

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

With a record-breaking 6 million TV viewers tuned into the debut episode of Season 2 of Pawn Stars on The History Channel, there’s no denying that the three most unlikely heroes have become the biggest tourist attraction in Las Vegas.

So much so that Vegas DeLuxe can reveal exclusively that they are taking the show on the road! But with success comes problems, and they’re appealing to Mayor Oscar Goodman to help solve a bureaucratic nightmare over parking problems.

It’s become such a downtown drama with congestion that Rick Harrison himself is getting $40 in parking tickets every day because even he can’t reach his own store’s parking space.

“The meter maid is writing out tickets almost nonstop, and yet there’s an empty parking lot right across from our store that sits empty and unused. We could run it for the city and give it the revenue or buy it from the city and add to its coffers -- and simultaneously solve the tourist parking mess,” Rick told me at the Vegas magazine 7th anniversary party at Encore Beach Club and Surrender on Saturday.

“That way I’d be able to get to my own spot, too, without $200 worth of tickets a week. Mr. Mayor, you’ve got to help us!”

I promised Rick and Austin “Chumlee” Russell I would ensure that Oscar received a copy of this story in the hope he’d come to the rescue quickly.

Chumlee added: “We expanded the store to accommodate all the crowds each day, so they’re inside and not milling about outside. That’s one way to solve the congestion. Even we can’t believe what’s happening. When I wake up in the morning, I can look at the store from my new apartment there, and the crowds are already lining up waiting to get into see it and us. They told us 6 million viewers last week, so the situation is going to get even more chaotic.”

Plus, the show is now going out on the road. In an exclusive Vegas DeLuxe interview, producer Adam Steck, who runs Human Nature, Thunder From Down Under, Amazing Johnathan and Divas Las Vegas with Frank Marino, has signed them to The Gold & Silver Road Show.

Adam told me: “It will be their very loose version of The Great Antiques Road Show, but they will go out on the road on weekends. They will keep on filming here in Las Vegas, but it will be a live audience show across the country. We’ve already got a slew of dates for bookings offered to us, and now we’re working out the timetable so they can do it all. But it’ll start quite soon.”

(Incidentally, Adam also will be producing a new act at Excalibur now that comedian Louie Anderson is moving to his own showroom at the Bonkerz Comedy Club space in August at Palace Station.)

The Pawn Stars cast also has TV appearances lined up. They’re excited about Corey “Big Hoss” Harrison and Chumlee appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno next month and Rick’s appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman soon after.

“Everything is going fantastic,” Chumlee told me. “Everything is building bigger and better each day, but we gotta solve the parking problem quickly before we go out on the road. We’re looking forward to the travels and meeting the fans across America.

“But we need the mayor to literally overnight get that empty lot opened somehow and stop the tickets. We love the tourists. They love us -- but nobody likes the tickets. We can make it make money, so let’s do it the right way.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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