Statewide taxable sales up 2.7 percent for April

Taxable sales continued their up-a-bit, down-a-bit pattern in April -- rising 2.7 percent for the month.

That follows a four-tenths of a percent increase in January, a one-tenth decrease in February and a 2.9 percent drop in March.

In fact, that's pretty much been the pattern through the fiscal year, which is now up just a half percent over 10 months.

Total taxable sales for April were $2.6 billion with just five of the 17 counties in the red. That's much better than the 13 counties which reported decreases in March.

The best increase reported in April was in Carson City where total taxable sales increased 13.9 percent to $72.34 million. The capital has the best record in the state for this fiscal year with an overall 9.3 percent increase to $733.8 million.

Carson's April increase can be largely attributed to the 17.7 percent increase in automotive dealers and gasoline sales -- $20.5 million of the total. General merchandise stores were up 2.6 percent to $13.1 million and miscellaneous retail up 16.4 percent to $6.25 million.

Douglas County reported a 2.2 percent increase to $42.5 million for the month. But the county is down that same percentage for the year through April.

Automotive dealers and gasoline were the bright spots there as well, with a 16.5 percent increase to $4.3 million. The county's biggest category, the eating and drinking places, primarily in the Tahoe Basin, were actually off 10.3 percent for the month. That was offset by increases in numerous other areas.

The weak spot in Western Nevada was Lyon County, where sales fell 14.3 percent to $19.4 million. Lyon was joined by Storey County, where taxable sales fell 25.3 percent to $3.56 million.

The state's primary population areas -- Clark and Washoe counties -- were both up for April. Clark sales numbers rose 2.5 percent to $1.92 billion. Washoe reported an increase of nine-tenths of a percent to $415.4 million for the month.