Sunday, August 14, 2011
8NEWSNOW (LAS VEGAS)—Violent crime in the Las Vegas community may or may not make the news. But crime on the Las Vegas Strip grabs headlines worldwide. Although violent crime in the resort corridor is actually down, a recent string of high-profile incidents has prompted police to deploy in force.
If you haven't walked the Strip in the last few years, you may be stunned by its recent transformation. Instead of funneling visitors inside, just about anything you could want, from booze, to games, to shows, is available on the sidewalk away from casino security. Two weeks ago Metro added more than 100 officers to help police those areas.
The 5.6 miles at the center of the Las Vegas economy is some of the most recognizable real estate in the world. But some of its most recent inhabitants hardly resemble the visitors of old. A younger, rowdier crowd, lured in part by low room rates, mixes with Mickey Mouse, smut peddlers, and holy rollers, and malcontents of all sorts lurk along the periphery waiting for a victim.
"It's a new Strip and we've got to adjust how we police it now because it's not like it was 15 years ago," said Sgt. Tom Jenkins, Metropolitan Police Department.
He has been assigned to the Strip for the past 15 years and he is a walking reference guide. "This is one of our biggest problem areas right here," as he refers to an area near Imperial Palace. He is flanked by members of his Homeland Security team, and recently, by more than 100 additional police officers.
"We're in the no tolerance, you come up here and you do anything wrong you're going to go to jail. No tickets, you're going to jail. After all the recent problems with the homicides and all that, everything is back to serious," said Sgt. Jenkins.
The Saturday briefing for Operation Safe Strip is standing room only and far exceeding the usual count. In addition to patrols, specialized squads on gangs, vice, and narcotics answer the roll call in uniform and in plain clothes.
There is a visible police presence every few feet on the Strip prompted, in part, by Sheriff Doug Gillespie's own observations.
"I was down here roughly a month ago on a Saturday evening, walked the boulevard for probably five to six hours and what I saw caused me concern. From the fact that I saw people that had too much to drink, that were engaging with each other and a level of hostility that concerned me," said Sheriff Doug Gillespie, Metro.
The sheriff, like Sgt. Jenkins, points to the congestion, that creates tight spaces which spark short tempers, as a top public safety concern.
"See what happens here? We've got the drummer playing and we've got Michael Jackson on the other side. Everybody will stop and I'll have people walking into the street to get around these people so they can get by and that's when we got a problem and that's when we shut them down," said Sgt. Jenkins.
Much to his frustration, the sidewalk sideshow remains largely unchecked. No permits, licenses or background checks are required.
"We don't know who's under the Transformer outfit. We don't know who's dressed as Pokemon. What if we had all sexual offenders down here dressed up and they're hugging kids and taking pictures?"
Despite the challenges, Metro believes the increased enforcement is having an impact. "It's pretty mellow down here. We should of went south where all the madness goes down, Flamingo Circle," said Sgt. Jenkins.
"There's so many cop cars down there right now, Flamingo Circle's probably not bad," adds Officer Shahann Greene, Metro.
Add the detention center bus between O'Shea's and Margaritaville as its own form of crowd control. " "This is where your weekend can end up, right here," said Sgt. Jenkins. On this Saturday night, there are 62 arrests, including a suspected member of the Mongol's motorcycle gang who had a knife in his hand.
"We can't have any more homicides up here, the sheriff has made that clear. It's not good for the Strip, it's not good for the community, it's not good for us. We have to protect this. If something happens down here, we're done," said Sgt. Jenkins.
Among the challenges for Metro are numbers. The department has lost more than 200 sworn positions in the last two years. Putting officers on foot means they cover a much smaller area which means more of them are needed.
To help support the effort, according to the Sheriff Gillespie, casino companies, MGM International Resorts and Caesar's Entertainment are paying overtime for additional officers to patrol the public areas outside of their properties.
This is a resource intensive operation that may be tough to sustain long-term.
Peddlers, performers clogging the Strip are troubling to casinos
LAS VEGAS SUN (LAS VEGAS)—Concerns have escalated in corner offices up and down the Strip about smut peddlers and the X-rated litter their leaflets create along Las Vegas Boulevard as well as the proliferation of homeless people, costumed performers and unlicensed vendors.
One casino executive Tuesday called it a crisis that’s tarnishing the Strip’s image as a safe and fun place for tourists and is threatening the state’s economic engine.
“Our failure to enact comprehensive solutions in a reasonable manner is jeopardizing the image of Las Vegas,” said Jan Jones, senior vice president of communications and government relations at Caesars Entertainment.
“It’s reached the point that there’s a dangerous perception of our city.”
Jones’ comments come amid suggestions by Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak to create a tax district to generate money for additional police officers on the Strip. Besides nuisance concerns, the Strip is the site of three much-publicized deaths recently — two from stabbings, one from a punch.
Resort representatives say they have long expressed concerns to county commissioners about various nuisances — handbillers of sexual entertainment in particular. Little progress has been made, however, with some critics saying the county has pursued expensive and fruitless court battles.
In 2007, a federal judge declared unconstitutional a county ordinance preventing commercial leafleting on the Strip — a law aimed at X-rated material. It’s one of multiple First Amendment victories for Strip handbillers even as resort operators field complaints from tourists about card-sized ads for erotic entertainers that often end up on sidewalks or in gutters.
County officials and Metro Police have acknowledged that recent case law protects the free-speech right of street performers to perform for tips without a business license, said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of ACLU of Nevada.
The ACLU has successfully argued on behalf of leafleteers, street performers and activists on the Strip and downtown over the years. There’s room for compromise, although county officials have historically been unwilling to pursue other options outside of court, Lichtenstein said.
That may be changing, however.
Sheriff Doug Gillespie recently initiated meetings with Metro Police, handbillers and the ACLU to address complaints about aggressive handbillers who tend to clump in certain areas of the Strip, obstructing pedestrian traffic “so people feel like they’re running a gauntlet,” Lichtenstein said. One proposed solution would require that handbillers are widely disbursed along the Strip and not gathering in a particular place, he said.
“I would like to see representatives of the hotels also involved in these discussions so everyone could work together to protect First Amendment rights while relieving ancillary problems that go on with such activities, like the litter on the sidewalks,” he said.
Sisolak has proposed forming a committee of resort owners, county and immigration officials and Metro Police to address growing nuisance and safety concerns.
Jones said her company hopes to continue long-standing discussions with the ACLU and the county to find a compromise solution like other tourist cities have done with ordinances that limit where and when performers and leafleteers can operate. Caesars is also open to discussion about paying for an enhanced police force to enforce such an ordinance.
Honolulu is among multiple cities that have lessened such nuisances while also protecting free-speech rights, Jones said.
After years spent discussing the problem, the Nevada Resort Association, which represents many of the major hotels along the Strip, is also hopeful.
“Any solution is going to take a coordinated effort with the property owners, the county, the district attorney, the sheriff, the ACLU and the handbillers and will take a commitment of resources for both maintenance and enforcement and possibly even some improvement projects to ... protect unobstructed pathways and aid in enforcement,” resort association President Virginia Valentine said.
Rather than spending money for more police officers, the hotels should first seek an accounting of room tax money earmarked annually for Strip improvements, an amount that totaled $34 million last year, said Las Vegas political and marketing consultant Billy Vassiliadis, CEO of R&R Partners. Budget cuts may have hurt efforts by maintenance crews to clean the Strip, for example, he said.
“These problems have gotten worse, and there’s more riding on the success of tourism now. The folks on the Strip are eager to participate in discussions with policymakers.”
-Liz Benston
Date: 07/27/2011
Disgusting
Natasha Schüll at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
"Las Vegas casinos increasingly pay attention to their customers - their likes, dislikes, moods and patterns - in order to create an engaging experience. As Natasha Schull explains, the stated goal of these new designs is "customer extinction" - the moment at which the customer is out of money. This talk, essential viewing for anyone in the design or user experience fields, underlines the neutral nature of customer experience methods: like any tool, they can be used for good or ill."I hope somebody drops a house on her.
The Voice of Reason
From a recent "Letters to the Editor," published in the Las Vegas Sun Times:
"My husband and I visit your city several times a year. We don’t mind leaving all our money at the casino — this we expect.
However, we do mind the slimers trying to force pornographic cards on us when we walk the Strip. This past visit they were everywhere we walked. We were forced at one point to walk into the street to avoid them.
If we want to explore the sexual side of Vegas, we will do so on our own. We will no longer be visiting your city as long as you allow these individuals to shove their cards at us." -- Diane Harris, Tucson, AZ
Way to go, Diane! Note to the rest of America: stop throwing your money away in Vegas. When they're not trying to shove porn cards at old ladies and 12-year-olds, the natives are laughing at you.
"My husband and I visit your city several times a year. We don’t mind leaving all our money at the casino — this we expect.
However, we do mind the slimers trying to force pornographic cards on us when we walk the Strip. This past visit they were everywhere we walked. We were forced at one point to walk into the street to avoid them.
If we want to explore the sexual side of Vegas, we will do so on our own. We will no longer be visiting your city as long as you allow these individuals to shove their cards at us." -- Diane Harris, Tucson, AZ
Way to go, Diane! Note to the rest of America: stop throwing your money away in Vegas. When they're not trying to shove porn cards at old ladies and 12-year-olds, the natives are laughing at you.
Increase in Las Vegas auto thefts blamed on recession, smarter criminals
Bad news: Auto thefts have begun creeping back up in Las Vegas, bucking a national downward trend.
Law enforcement officials blame the increase on several factors, such as the sour economy and smarter thieves who are catching on to police tactics to nab them.
Through July 23, Metro Police have received 3,714 reports of stolen vehicles, a 5.4 percent increase compared with the same time frame last year, authorities said.
Some neighborhoods were hit harder: Auto thefts increased by 27 percent west of downtown to Decatur Boulevard, and by more than 10 percent in the area around the Strip — from Interstate 15 on the west to Swenson Street on east and Sahara Avenue in north and Russell Road on the south.
Downtown Las Vegas and the northwest valley — Charleston Boulevard on the south, Decatur on the east — bucked that trend, with auto thefts decreasing by about 15 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively.
Nationally, the number of stolen vehicles reported in 2010 dropped by 7.2 percent from 2009, according to preliminary FBI crime data.
The neighborhoods with higher percentage increases tend to have greater concentrations of vehicles — the Meadows mall, for instance — with specific auto brands desired by thieves, said Sgt. Todd Richter of Metro’s VIPER (Vehicle Investigations Project for Enforcement and Recovery) task force.
“Wherever there’s a high amount of vehicles, that’s where the thieves go,” he said, adding that malls and gyms are prime targets because people leave their cars for more than a few minutes.
As police work to curb the thefts, they are running into repeat offenders and people who have stolen multiple cars in one day, Richter said.
In one instance, an auto thief stole four vehicles in one day and planted them in a neighborhood where he planned to commit burglaries. If he ran into trouble, he had getaway cars, Richter said.
“Suspects will place cars all over — that way, if they need a car, there’s one,” Richter said.
Other thieves steal for joy rides, to get from one place to another when they abandon them or to strip for their parts, Richter said.
“There is no set pattern,” Richter said. “Anything you can imagine that these cars are being used for, they are.”
Those motives often determine the types of cars stolen. Thieves typically target older model Acuras and Hondas or large-model GM vehicles produced before 2007 for joy riding because they’re known to have fewer anti-theft tools.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau list of the 10 most-stolen vehicles for 2010 supports that. The 1994 Honda Accord tops the list of stolen vehicles nationwide, followed by the 1995 Honda Civic and 1991 Toyota Camry.
Richter said car crooks in Las Vegas have been targeting larger-model domestics, such as Escalades and Tahoes, because their parts are interchangeable. Just over half of the vehicles stolen in Las Vegas last year were domestic, according to Metro data.
Police said it’s difficult to pinpoint why auto thefts have increased this year. It could partially stem from thieves learning how to thwart law enforcement tactics, such as bait cars, said Timothy Bedwell, North Las Vegas Police spokesman.
“As we develop technology and strategies, they develop counterstrategies,” he said.
Auto thefts in North Las Vegas have increased 7 percent through June 28 compared with last year. Stolen vehicle reports in Henderson, however, have dropped by 19.5 percent from January through July compared with the same time span in 2010, police said.
Henderson Police attributed the decrease in auto thefts, in part, to the arrests of three people who detectives think stole many vehicles through the years. Police also installed signs in parking lots prone to auto thefts warning would-be thieves that a bait car is in the lot, Henderson Police spokesman Keith Paul said.
Police said auto theft detectives are constantly tweaking strategies, looking for better ways to use bait cars and informants to track and catch thieves.
To prevent auto thefts, law enforcement officials’ advice is simple: Lock cars. Take valuables out. Use alarm systems.
Even so, Richter said owners of the car models most often stolen might be out of luck. Thieves can steal those cars “in a matter of seconds,” he said.
- Jackie Valley and Marie Mortera
Date: 08/04/2011
County hopes to curb ‘disorder’ on Strip
The YouTube video of a Los Angeles tourist punching a costumed superhero strolling the Strip a few months back caught everyone’s eye. That was ugly. But it’s more than that. Somehow and very quickly, not only are costumed characters multiplying, but people peddling bottles of water — and in some cases, beer — are popping up everywhere, homeless people are hanging out on pedestrian bridges, card slappers are still soliciting customers for nearly naked women and folks are selling trinkets of all sorts, sometimes forcing pedestrians onto the roadway.
One Clark County commissioner says enough is enough, and suggests as a possible solution the creation of a tax district to help pay for more law enforcement along the Strip. The issue may be discussed when the commission meets Aug. 2.
Lt. John McGrath of Metro Police’s Convention Center Area Command said the department has enough officers on the Strip to make it safe; the three recent violent deaths — two from stabbings, one from a punch — were anomalies at a time of double-digit declines in violent crime. But, he says, officers are challenged by the proliferation of something more prosaic: unlicensed sales of water, CDs, T-shirts, even beer from coolers. Police have cited and in some cases arrested repeat offenders but have struggled to make a dent on the scene.
Officers, he said, call it “disorder.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous, but it’s more than a nuisance,” McGrath said.
Commissioner Steve Sisolak says the goings-on along the Strip are so off-putting to many tourists that casinos may be feeling the effects. From illegal vendors to handbillers to the generally unkempt feel he got during a recent stroll on the Strip, he said something has to be done.
“It’s dirty, the ground is actually dirty,” he said. “They need to spray off those sidewalks. You’ve got dozens of people selling water, scores of characters in costumes asking for a donation to take a picture with them and hundreds of card-flippers, then guys with megaphones handing out pamphlets,” he said.
“The sidewalks are getting blocked with this stuff,” Sisolak added. “I’m an advocate of free speech, but you can have reasonable time-place restrictions, too.”
Only adding to his uneasy feeling are the monolithic heaps left in the wake of the economic meltdown of the past few years — iron lattice exposed on the incomplete Echelon complex, the empty Fontainebleau tower, and fences around other unfinished projects.
“This is the most valuable part of our economy, all within a four-to-five-mile stretch, and we’ve got to do what we can to make it a pleasant experience,” Sisolak added. The Strip went through a period of adult-Disneyfication in the 1990s but now, the commissioner added, “I wouldn’t have a safe feeling if I took a child out there.”
Sisolak, vice chairman of the County Commission, has met with casino representatives whom, he says, seem to support his proposal to form a committee of resort owners, with support from various county agencies, to analyze Strip issues and develop a plan to address them. He also wants Metro Police involved as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The County Commission is likely to talk about his idea at its next meeting Aug. 2. Among his suggestions: creating a taxing district to generate money to pay for additional enforcement officers.
Commissioner Tom Collins, who also serves as chairman of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, agrees with Sisolak that the Strip sidewalk scene may need attention, but says it reflects a cyclical problem that surfaces during rough economic times.
“When you’ve got an economy like we do, there’s a lot more people, not just on the Strip but everywhere, hustling a little bit, panhandling a little bit,” he said. “A guy’s out of work, he has a Halloween costume, and now he’s trying to sell pictures (of himself in costume with a tourist) on the Strip.”
That said, he also believes much of the problem stems from the handbillers or card-slappers, whose right to distribute material has been upheld in court.
“But where is the balance between free speech versus the efforts of this community to be successful?” Collins added. “We could make that place cleaner and nicer if we weren’t sued by the ACLU all the time.”
Allen Lichtenstein, ACLU of Nevada general counsel, said plenty of case law has been created supporting the free-speech rights of handbillers. “They are protected in the same way that religious organizations are protected, or students who want to demonstrate against budget cuts are protected. You can’t pick and choose who is and isn’t protected.”
Lichtenstein said Metro, in the past two months, has come forward to talk to the ACLU about the issues, realizing that another lawsuit is not the answer. What’s becoming clear, he added, is that the handbillers — who are clumped in one area, causing crowding problems — can work anywhere up and down the Strip.
“People seemed to think they had to all be in certain areas,” he said, adding that just spreading them out might alleviate at least one of the issues Sisolak wants to address.
As for the other issues, the illegal vendors being a big one, those may take more time.
“There’s not a simple solution,” McGrath admitted. “It took a few years to get to this point and it’s going to take time to get it back to where it was.”
-Joe Schoenmann
Date: 07/26/2011
The onslaught of assholes
The infamous Batman beatdown on the Strip; more George Knapp on the recent hubbub over costumed assholes and panhandlers staging a Strip takeover:
Las Vegas is so classy, exhibit A:
CITYLIFE (LAS VEGAS, NV)--"I knew it was getting out of hand when I saw the guy dressed up in a penis costume," the Metro cop told me. "And he was working with another costumed performer who was dressed up as a vagina. They were working in tandem right there on the pavement in front of Bally's."
The presence of a 6-foot tall, walking, talking penis on a public sidewalk would hardly surprise anyone who has been on the Strip recently. The influx of costumed characters is now a full-blown phenomenon (no penis pun intended) and the nightly roll call includes portly Batmen, gay Supermen, postmenopausal Wonder Women, assorted dueling Elvii, space aliens, showgirls of every age and shape, and creatures worthy of a Tim Burton nightmare.
Of all the distractions on the Strip these days, the costumed folks are among the least egregious. Tourists seem to enjoy taking snapshots with them, but we are rapidly approaching the saturation point. Metro officers say they see a lot of costume-on-costume violence, as caped crusaders tussle with pirates of the Caribbean for prime spots on the sidewalk. I am not making this up. There have been other, more serious concerns, too, such as characters posing for photos with families, even though the people in the costumes have long rap sheets as sexual predators.
The characters are but one of the highly visible manifestations of an infection that is spreading along the Strip. On any given night, and to a lesser extent during the day, the sidewalks are packed with escort-service handbillers, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, gang members, pickpockets, illegal vendors, panhandlers, hustlers and random thugs. And everywhere, it seems, there are drunks. Not just happy drunks, amiably taking in the sights, but completely blotto drunks, falling-down drunks, loud, boisterous, asshole drunks who hurl insults, get into fistfights, run out into traffic, hurl their guts onto the sidewalk, pass out and act like complete jerks.
Las Vegas has always been a place to party. What's different these days is the degree of drunkenness and the sheer, multifaceted array of jerkwads, nincompoops, ruffians and shady operators. One of my TV colleagues captured video of an illegal sidewalk gambling operation the other day. Police say they have caught vendors selling beer out of coolers. I would not be surprised to see enterprising strippers bring their own poles onto the sidewalk, or hookers set up portable cribs.
HOW DID IT GET THIS WAY?
I think there is a temptation to blame some of this transformation on the ad campaign that has helped to keep our town afloat. The "What happens here" ads were a smashing success. The slogan is now so ingrained in American culture that you don't need to finish the punch line. The brilliant spots have certainly reminded the world that our town has long been a sanctuary for those in search of a good time, a city of temptations and fantasies.
The ads have never urged people to drive as fast as they can to get here, or to drink as much as they can once they arrive. But somehow, as the "What happens" message has seeped into the national consciousness, it has morphed into different meanings for different people. Personally, I suspect the principal catalyst for the onslaught of numbskullery is a movie.
THE HANGOVER EFFECT
Maybe it seems unfair to blame the wave of obnoxiousness on a mere movie, and a comedy at that, but if you ask the beleaguered officers who are trying to keep a grip on the Strip, they will tell you that The Hangover is now an everyday part of their work. A friend of mine, Sgt. Mike Ford, says he and his colleagues hear it every night, the ramblings of besotted idiots who somehow think the cops in Las Vegas are going to be just as cool and understanding as the cops in The Hangover.
For many visitors, anything short of a Hangover-type experience will be a disappointment. So they start pounding booze during the trip to town, and they drink more when they arrive, and they continue drinking until they pass out or end up in jail. Fighting, obnoxiousness and vandalism are just part of the territory. Add to that the locals who hang out on the Strip to see what pops up, and you have a recipe for trouble.
"We're not going to arrest our way out of this," former sheriff Bill Young told me. He's right. We can't possibly assign a cop to every visitor. But arrests are certainly part of the solution. The problem is, there is no place to put the people who get arrested, no prosecutors available to go after any but the most serious criminals. As Young says, unless you make it hurt, unless you disrupt people causing trouble on the Strip by taking them out of action for awhile, they will keep coming back.
Sheriff Doug Gillespie gets it. He was way ahead of the curve when he created a new squad last fall to deal with the influx of buttheads on the Strip. But the wave of troublemakers has grown faster than the police can keep up. It might take a long-term commitment -- comparable to what New York police did in Times Square in the '90s -- to get it and keep it under control.
Our elected officials have invited this trouble. They didn't do it on purpose, of course, but they have repeatedly approved projects and policies that have magnified these problems. They said it is OK for casinos to build bars right out onto the sidewalks, where the properties sell oversized novelty drinks that help to make visitors comatose. The crowded scenes approved by local officials not only contribute to rowdy behavior, but are downright ugly.
Increased law enforcement is going to be part of the solution, but there are larger and more complicated issues that must be challenged if our town is going to reclaim some of the class that it has clearly lost. More on that in the weeks ahead.
Date: 07/21/2011
Las Vegas is so classy, exhibit A:
CITYLIFE (LAS VEGAS, NV)--"I knew it was getting out of hand when I saw the guy dressed up in a penis costume," the Metro cop told me. "And he was working with another costumed performer who was dressed up as a vagina. They were working in tandem right there on the pavement in front of Bally's."
The presence of a 6-foot tall, walking, talking penis on a public sidewalk would hardly surprise anyone who has been on the Strip recently. The influx of costumed characters is now a full-blown phenomenon (no penis pun intended) and the nightly roll call includes portly Batmen, gay Supermen, postmenopausal Wonder Women, assorted dueling Elvii, space aliens, showgirls of every age and shape, and creatures worthy of a Tim Burton nightmare.
Of all the distractions on the Strip these days, the costumed folks are among the least egregious. Tourists seem to enjoy taking snapshots with them, but we are rapidly approaching the saturation point. Metro officers say they see a lot of costume-on-costume violence, as caped crusaders tussle with pirates of the Caribbean for prime spots on the sidewalk. I am not making this up. There have been other, more serious concerns, too, such as characters posing for photos with families, even though the people in the costumes have long rap sheets as sexual predators.
The characters are but one of the highly visible manifestations of an infection that is spreading along the Strip. On any given night, and to a lesser extent during the day, the sidewalks are packed with escort-service handbillers, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, gang members, pickpockets, illegal vendors, panhandlers, hustlers and random thugs. And everywhere, it seems, there are drunks. Not just happy drunks, amiably taking in the sights, but completely blotto drunks, falling-down drunks, loud, boisterous, asshole drunks who hurl insults, get into fistfights, run out into traffic, hurl their guts onto the sidewalk, pass out and act like complete jerks.
Las Vegas has always been a place to party. What's different these days is the degree of drunkenness and the sheer, multifaceted array of jerkwads, nincompoops, ruffians and shady operators. One of my TV colleagues captured video of an illegal sidewalk gambling operation the other day. Police say they have caught vendors selling beer out of coolers. I would not be surprised to see enterprising strippers bring their own poles onto the sidewalk, or hookers set up portable cribs.
HOW DID IT GET THIS WAY?
I think there is a temptation to blame some of this transformation on the ad campaign that has helped to keep our town afloat. The "What happens here" ads were a smashing success. The slogan is now so ingrained in American culture that you don't need to finish the punch line. The brilliant spots have certainly reminded the world that our town has long been a sanctuary for those in search of a good time, a city of temptations and fantasies.
The ads have never urged people to drive as fast as they can to get here, or to drink as much as they can once they arrive. But somehow, as the "What happens" message has seeped into the national consciousness, it has morphed into different meanings for different people. Personally, I suspect the principal catalyst for the onslaught of numbskullery is a movie.
THE HANGOVER EFFECT
Maybe it seems unfair to blame the wave of obnoxiousness on a mere movie, and a comedy at that, but if you ask the beleaguered officers who are trying to keep a grip on the Strip, they will tell you that The Hangover is now an everyday part of their work. A friend of mine, Sgt. Mike Ford, says he and his colleagues hear it every night, the ramblings of besotted idiots who somehow think the cops in Las Vegas are going to be just as cool and understanding as the cops in The Hangover.
For many visitors, anything short of a Hangover-type experience will be a disappointment. So they start pounding booze during the trip to town, and they drink more when they arrive, and they continue drinking until they pass out or end up in jail. Fighting, obnoxiousness and vandalism are just part of the territory. Add to that the locals who hang out on the Strip to see what pops up, and you have a recipe for trouble.
"We're not going to arrest our way out of this," former sheriff Bill Young told me. He's right. We can't possibly assign a cop to every visitor. But arrests are certainly part of the solution. The problem is, there is no place to put the people who get arrested, no prosecutors available to go after any but the most serious criminals. As Young says, unless you make it hurt, unless you disrupt people causing trouble on the Strip by taking them out of action for awhile, they will keep coming back.
Sheriff Doug Gillespie gets it. He was way ahead of the curve when he created a new squad last fall to deal with the influx of buttheads on the Strip. But the wave of troublemakers has grown faster than the police can keep up. It might take a long-term commitment -- comparable to what New York police did in Times Square in the '90s -- to get it and keep it under control.
Our elected officials have invited this trouble. They didn't do it on purpose, of course, but they have repeatedly approved projects and policies that have magnified these problems. They said it is OK for casinos to build bars right out onto the sidewalks, where the properties sell oversized novelty drinks that help to make visitors comatose. The crowded scenes approved by local officials not only contribute to rowdy behavior, but are downright ugly.
Increased law enforcement is going to be part of the solution, but there are larger and more complicated issues that must be challenged if our town is going to reclaim some of the class that it has clearly lost. More on that in the weeks ahead.
Date: 07/21/2011
The Hangover Effect
KNPR (LAS VEGAS, NV)—It was funny in the movie but it seems lots of tourists are trying to live out the experience of very drunken debauchery along Las Vegas Boulevard. Increased violence and numerous reports of unauthorized vendors and performers have complicated the situation for Metro and Clark County officials. Now they are looking for answers. Bans and tougher policing aren't the answer but what is? Listen to radio broadcast on KNPR's website.
Date: 08/12/2011
Source: KNPR, State of Nevada
Date: 08/12/2011
Source: KNPR, State of Nevada
Evictions soar in Las Vegas
CBS NEWS (LAS VEGAS)—The financial troubles the country is going through began when the housing bubble burst and the market has yet to recover. A report out today says nearly 213,000 homeowners got foreclosure notices in July.
Nevada is ground zero for the crisis. CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker shows what happens when families there can no longer pay the mortgage or rent.
It's a scene repeated again and again, day after day across Las Vegas: Two deputies from the Las Vegas township constable's office enforcing a judge's order on a foreclosed home.
Sgt. Patrick Geary is in the process of evicting a family from his residence. "You have to get a change of clothes, stuff like that, and take off in about 15 minutes," he told the man of the house.
"Well, I have my son upstairs right now. He's sleeping."
"Okay, well, you need to wake him up."
The young couple and their son have only the time it takes a locksmith to change the locks -- maybe 10 or 15 minutes -- to grab what they can. They lost the house after falling behind on their payments. Now they'll have to make arrangements with the new owner -- a bank -- to come back later for the rest of their belongings.
Geary served 21 years with the Las Vegas police department. He's been doing evictions for five.
"You gotta have really thick skin to be able to do it," he said.
He carried out 15 the day CBS News met him.
"It's hard," he explained. "It's not for the faint of heart. You could take a lot of this stuff personal and it would eat you up."
Las Vegas has with the highest foreclosure rate in the country and one of the highest unemployment rates, 13.8 percent. The constable's office, the largest in Clark County, carried out more than 34,000 evictions last year. The vast majority are tenants behind in their rent.
"Is it mostly because people have lost jobs, or is it people who are trying to scam the landlord?" Whitaker asked Deputy Scott McWilliams.
"For apartments usually, I think it deals a lot with employment issues."
CBS News drove with McWilliams from apartment to apartment. The 107-degree heat didn't slow his pace.
"Today we'll probably end up doing probably about 25 to 30," he said.
Most tenants are gone when McWilliams arrives to evict them and change the locks. Others seemed surprised, though all have gotten multiple notices their evictions were imminent.
In one instance McWilliams walks into a residence. "Any dogs?" he asked a man inside.
"No!"
"Any weapons?"
"No!"
"Okay, hurry up, because as soon as he's done," said McWilliams, referring to another person in the residence, "it's time to go."
Whitaker asked the deputy if he sees any of this turning around. "Unfortunately no," said McWilliams. "It's been a steady flow. It's almost like trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon. I don't see an end in sight.
The constables of Las Vegas township are on track to carry out 40,000 evictions this year, 6,000 more than last.
Date: 08/11/11
Saturday, August 13, 2011
"You ain't had it like I do it."
With its string of undeveloped, dusty lots and a revolving cast of shady characters, this neighborhood, if you can call it that, is packed with strip clubs, adult arcades and tattoo shops and is anchored by a Las Vegas institution: White Cross Drugs and its popular 24-hour diner, Tiffany's, which straddle the action at the intersection of Las Vegas and East Oakey boulevards.
With Metro's crackdown on the Strip in the wake of five recent killings just to the south, and its already robust presence a little to the north, beneath the vintage glitter of the Fremont Street Experience, you'd think crime would be down here, too -- and it is, compared to just a few years ago. But the neighborhood, plagued by roughly one major crime a day, still faces challenges: low-rent hookers with so little fear of arrest they turn tricks in the daytime; drug dealers slinging baggies of sunshine across the boulevard; and the gang-bangers who still kill rivals with guns, knives and beatings.
Terry Morrison has seen it all. From his perch inside White Cross as the daytime security guard, Morrison -- armed with a stocky, muscle-laden frame, intimidating cop sunglasses, 18 security cameras across the property and a set of handcuffs (for subduing unruly customers) -- laments the still-persistent criminal element here.
"A couple of weeks ago, we had a gang beating, right out here, outside the store," he says. "Three guys jumped out of a car and started working on this guy; in 10 seconds it was over, and one of the kids got stabbed."
A few days after that came retribution: One of the alleged aggressors was himself attacked and killed just down the street. Morrison says he heard the attacker might have been stabbed; he wasn't sure. He is sure, however, that the alleged attacker got a free trip to the morgue.
And so it goes, Morrison says. "We see everything around here, you name it. I don't see too much of what happens around here at night, but there's a lot going on in the day."
I can tell Morrison what goes down here at night: Things get worse, a lot worse. I've combed this neighborhood for the past several days and nights, talking to business owners, vagrants and garden-variety Las Vegas crazies. Ten-dollar blowjobs are as easy to come by as the bags of pills behind the nearby 7-Eleven.
Once the sun sets, the air crackles with criminal possibility. On a recent night, just up the street from where Morrison guards his shop, the dealers are out in full force, expanding their outdoor sales floor far beyond the glow of the convenience store, as a guy in an Army surplus jacket tries the handles of cars parked outside a tattoo shop, a vintage clothing store, a strip club. The second they see a Metro cruiser turn south onto the boulevard and head in his direction, everybody scatters, gone into the night.
The hookers, however, provide the biggest dose of free entertainment, if only for their brazenness. At just before 1 in the afternoon on a recent weekday, I meet Debbie (she actually goes by her "street name," Juicy, she says) just up the street from White Cross in front of an abandoned strip mall. Eager to please but also desperate for cash, Debbie offers me a blowjob for $20, just before I whip out my press badge and start asking questions. "Twenty bucks," I ask, "you're twice the going rate. What's up with that?"
"You ain't had it like I do it," she says. Watching Debbie/Juicy stand there, wobbling atop scabbed, twiggy legs that barely fill out her cutoff jean shorts, which along with a bedazzled yet sweat-stained halter top complete her ensemble today, I take her at her word. I walk away when she refuses to say how many times she's been arrested or much of anything else that doesn't involve haggling over price.
For Chris Vex, who works the red-hot ovens at Boston Pizza not a half mile away, the persistent criminal element is just part of the neighborhood. Vex has nothing but praise for Metro's efforts to scrub this area clean. "I've lived in this neighborhood for eight years, and the crime is fucking way better than it used to be," he says. "Shit, we used to have the fucking SWAT teams riding up and down the streets here, man. Today, it's fucking way better."
Opinions about the level of crime vary among business owners and longtime residents. Some, like Vex, praise Metro for its hard work. Others, like Morrison, realize there's still a long way to go before this stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, like the busier swaths just south and north, engenders any sense of real safety, day or night.
Date: 08/11/2011
Tunnels beneath Vegas a refuge for homeless people
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Underneath its glitzy casinos, far from the bright marquees, there is another Las Vegas, a pitch-black, dank underworld virtually unknown and unseen by those who live, work and play above.
About 300 people — mostly men battling demons of various addictions — live in the underground storm system built to protect the desert playground from the infrequent cloudburst.
There's no sign or word of welcome down here. Drug use is nearly universal. Most people carry makeshift weapons and the police don't often come unless they're called.
But the denizens have found a haven in the labyrinth of concrete tunnels that snake beneath the city and its suburbs.
In a place where total darkness can be just one bend away, visitors to this urban netherworld stumble across the unexplainable. A beat-up teddy bear lies next to a dirty chef's knife propped up against a wall. Graffiti turns into murals near sparse pockets of light.
A scruffy black cat's meow is startling as it scrambles in a pile of junk to escape a flashlight's beam. The echoes of footsteps change as boots hit standing water, or accidentally kick empty beer bottles as they tiptoe past midday sleepers. Fetid smells of garbage, dirty water and wet cloth waft through the corridors.
Each subterranean encampment can be as spartan as a few worn blankets, or as elaborate as an apartment fitted with queen-size beds, dining utensils and knickknacks.
One camp just west of the Las Vegas Strip is wallpapered with hardcore pornography, a collage of magazine pages modified with hand-drawn comic book-like dialogue bubbles giving voice to naked women.
"You'd be surprised the things that wash down in this channel ... it's hard to even describe," said Rick "Iron" Cobble, a 45-year-old Oklahoma native, who sleeps in a 5-foot-high tunnel near the south end of the glittering Strip, not far from the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.
Cobble, battling severe drug addiction while living near a mound of washed up garbage, said his only belongings are a small mound of blankets and his clothes.
"Right now I'm just trying to survive," Cobble said. "That's the only way you can put it."
Rich Penksa, a retired correctional sergeant who began traversing the tunnels earlier this year for a nonprofit's homeless outreach, said he first heard about the tunnels years ago from prison inmates who told tales of living under Sin City when not behind bars.
"I don't think I've ever felt odder than when I'm down in that tunnel environment," said Penksa, who once encountered thousands of spiders feasting on the baby mosquitoes multiplying in standing water. Penksa frequents the tunnels for HELP of Southern Nevada, which is working to place tunnel residents into more conventional homes.
What started as a piecemeal set of individual drains is now part of a 500-mile maze of pipes, washes, basins and open channels, said Betty Hollister, spokeswoman for the Clark County Regional Flood Control District that built the system. Local jurisdictions maintain it using sales tax money at a cost of $7.9 million last fiscal year.
About 200 miles of the system — mostly built since 1986 — are underground drains ranging from 2-foot pipes to 12-foot-high, 20-foot-wide reinforced concrete boxes that shape channels, Hollister said.
The people who call these tunnels home — mostly men ages 35 to 50, are a distinct breed, Penksa said.
"Even the folks that are homeless above ground are very leery of the inhabitants of the tunnels. They're kind of feared," he said.
Annie Wilson, homeless liaison for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said officers usually only go into the tunnels when they are called or if they are doing homeless outreach.
Penksa said he has encountered a few children and women living alone below, but no families.
Most inhabitants don't like intruders and avoid conversation.
Eric D., a 40-year-old New Yorker who has spent the past five years sleeping between four tunnels near various casinos, said he's largely left alone in these desolate hallways — leaving him free to use drugs.
"Down here, we're out of sight, out of mind," he said. "Which is cool with me because that's the way I prefer it."
Eric, who asked that his last name not be used, said people end up in the tunnels for a lot of different reasons — he's addicted to methamphetamines and marijuana.
"This is the worst situation anybody could ever be in, and I did it to myself," he said.
Eric said the pitch black passageways are livable if you're not claustrophobic, don't mind cockroaches or black widow spiders and can tolerate "nasty" smells that get worse when things get wet.
Even small amounts of rain make the tunnels dangerous.
"When the water comes, if you're not ready for it, it'll take you," Cobble said. "It's not like a little trickle."
The drains and 82 basins work together like bathtubs, with rainwater filling basins then draining through large output pipes, Hollister said. The system, driven by gravity, propels water east to Lake Mead. The change in elevation from Red Rock Canyon — 2,800 feet, or twice the height of the Stratosphere Tower — means water can travel as fast as 30 mph through the tunnels with levels rising as much as one foot per minute, Hollister said.
Eric is known as the weatherman among his tunnel neighbors because he spends hours watching television in the casinos' sports books and keeping up with weather forecasts.
"I've seen these things fill all the way to the roof," he said. "If somebody doesn't watch the weather, and you get caught, you can lose your life in here."
Fortunately, Las Vegas went 347 days without any rainfall in 2009, and had only five days where at least 0.10 of an inch of precipitation fell. Still, since 1960, there have been 31 flood deaths in the city, according to the flood district, including five deaths since 1992 believed to be homeless people.
Matthew O'Brien, a writer who began exploring the tunnels in 2002 and wrote a book about them published in 2007, said people live in the tunnels for a wide range of reasons, including to get out of the desert summer heat that easily passes 100 degrees.
O'Brien said the vast majority are addicted to either drugs, alcohol, gambling or some combination of the vices.
"In these tunnels, no one bothers you, no one harasses you — there's a permanence," he said. "When you leave and come back, you know your home's going to be there in the tunnel."
O'Brien said the tunnel residents largely live off the excesses of the casino corridor by panhandling or cashing out unplayed slot machines — a practice known as the credit hustle.
Eric says the hustle, while once lucrative, has become less reliable as Sin City battles a harsh economic downturn keyed by deteriorating tourism.
"The money, up until I'd say three years ago, was just too good to not do it. I literally averaged $150 a day cash money in my pocket," Eric said. "And when you have a speed habit like I did and you have a marijuana habit like I do, it was the greatest thing in the world."
Penksa said the majority of tunnel dwellers don't want assistance.
Still, HELP has placed 18 tunnel residents into permanent housing since March.
Eric said he's hoping to get out of his concrete home soon, and would likely be out already if not for his marijuana habit.
"I have to make right with my family and I don't want them thinking I'm going to spend my whole life living like this, like a bum," Eric said. "Fifteen years of doing the same monotonous, dumb stuff, it's time I gotta do something right for myself. I can't do it no more, I'm so tired of being who I am."
City wants shopping carts corralled
This article may be dated, but that doesn't mean that the issue is. The things are everywhere and turn up in really random places, like the middle of the street or the roof of a building. Apparently LA has had problems with abandoned shopping carts as well. Maybe it's a West Coast thing? This led the City of Las Vegas to start the Abandoned Shopping Cart Clean-Up Program. I'm just guessing, but because I have eyes, I think it's not going well.
LAS VEGAS SUN (LAS VEGAS, NV)—North Las Vegas may join Clark County and Las Vegas in the fight against abandoned shopping carts.
A proposed law that would require North Las Vegas businesses to either keep their shopping carts inside their parking lots or retrieve wayward carts is scheduled to be discussed tonight at the North Las Vegas City Council meeting.
Councilwoman Stephanie Smith said the mayor and council support the proposed law.
"We want to make sure we get these shopping carts where they belong, not on the streets," she said. "It's a public nuisance. We've had lots of complaints."
Smith said abandoned shopping carts have been a problem in North Las Vegas and the surrounding area.
Earlier this year the Clark County Commission and Las Vegas City Council passed similar laws holding stores responsible for abandoned carts.
"We're not reinventing the wheel," Smith said.
City Code Enforcement Manager Sheldon Klain said the proposed law would require stores to either hire a shopping cart recovery service to pick up carts found off their property, or have a way to stop carts from leaving their property.
For example, Wal-Mart stores have an electronic device on their carts that lock the wheels if the cart is taken off of store property, said Klain, who would oversee enforcement of the law.
Richard Martinez, manager of the Albertson's on East Lake Mead Boulevard in North Las Vegas, said he already employs a cart retrieval service.
"Most of the chain (stores) have a service," he said. "Without the baskets I can't do business."
Stores without a plan to keep shopping carts off public property could be fined up to $25 a day under the law, he said.
The ordinance is expected to be voted on by the city council Oct. 2, Klain said. As proposed, the law would go into effect immediately after that vote, he said.
If approved, the city would contract with a company to pick up carts around the city, and the city would pass on the cost of retrieving the carts to the businesses, Klain said. He said that cost would be $3 per cart.
In February, the council reviewed a version of an abandoned-shopping-cart law under which stores could have been fined $50 per abandoned cart if city officials cited a store more than three times within six months.
Klain said since February he has met with business representatives to discuss changes to the law, including eliminating the $50 fine.
"We're not trying to penalize them; we're trying to fix a problem," he said.
Mary Lau, executive director of the Retail Association of Nevada, a trade association representing major grocery chains, said the group supports the ordinance.
"It looks like (the ordinance) has been improved," Lau said.
Date: 09/18/2002
Image source: Jae C. Hong, via an AP article appearing in the Times Record News
Leaving Las Vegas
KNPR (LAS VEGAS, NV)—Las Vegas used to be the land of opportunity but many people are now moving on to better jobs and...better places. One of them is Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist, author and Stephens Media executive, Geoff Schumacher. We talk to him about the newspaper business in Las Vegas over the last two decades, the boom and bust cycle and why he's moving to head a group of papers in Ames, Iowa. Listen to radio broadcast on KNPR's website.
Date: 03/04/2011
Source: KNPR, State of Nevada
Date: 03/04/2011
Source: KNPR, State of Nevada
Las Vegas Author Matt O'Brien Exposes Plight Of Underground Homeless
HUFFINGTON POST—Below the flashing neon, imagine an underground Las Vegas of winding flood channels, drippy and dark. The channels seem inhabitable if not for the threadbare mattresses and some out-of-place artwork on the walls. People actually live here.
And Las Vegas author Matt O'Brien writes about them -- real, raw stories of the desert homeless who were drawn to the Strip's intrigue but now live unseen, below the surface of the city.
O'Brien, a 14-year Las Vegas resident, is an advocate for the homeless and others who are systematically ignored in Las Vegas. He says he fights for the "losers" versus the "winners," documenting their stories and running a nonprofit to help the homeless get out of the tunnels.
He recently released his second book, "My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas", a nonfiction novel describing his ethnographic experience living with those who make their home at the battered Blue Angel Motel.
"All those dancing lights. All those dead-end dreams....All those tumbleweed dice...This city takes so much...and gives so little."Originally O'Brien began giving voice to the homeless who live in the flood channels that rumble beneath the Strip. He wrote his first book, "Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas", four years ago after spending time in the 200 miles of channels spread throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
O'Brien writes about his experience wading through the tunnels' desert monsoon rain, which at times builds enough height and speed to wash away the makeshift homes. Always curious but also cautious, he describes precariously exploring the tunnels.
"A graffiti face -- wide eyed and tight-lipped glanced downstream, as if it knew something I didn't. What's it warning me about, I wondered? A madman lurking in the shadows? A dead body wrapped around a divider? A whirlpool that sucked milk crates, mattresses and homeless men into its indiscriminate vacuum?"But he wasn't content to just share stories of the conditions these homeless endured. He turned his advocacy journalism into action by joining forces with homeless crisis center HELP of Southern Nevada and founded Shine a Light two years ago. The group has drawn out and housed nearly 100 homeless from the flood channels, providing mental health and drug counseling.
We talked to O'Brien about quitting his job to focus on his books and grassroots nonprofit. He also gave us an insider's view of the tunnels.
It seems risky to live down in flood channels. Who's actually doing this?
Vegas only gets 4.5 inches of rain a year, allowing people to live there, and it's not as hot in summer or cold during winter. The population down there varies quite a bit. You have some teenagers living and hanging out, middle-aged men and Vietnam veterans. And people who came out to Vegas looking for the American dream -- you know, the $60,000-a-year job even though you don't have a college degree, the house, pool and family. Instead, they're living beneath the hotels and casinos that lured them out here in first place.
What are the physical conditions like?
Most people live near the inlets and outlets and set up camps, which can be as simple as a cardboard mat. Or, they'll have a milk crate as a coffee table, a king-sized bed with a frame and headboard and artwork on the walls. They're reclusive and like privacy, but we also found communities with 10 to 15 people living together, sharing food and money and drugs.
After you wrote "Beneath the Neon", what kind of reaction were you hoping for from city and state officials? And did that come to pass?
Part of reason I wrote it was to draw the attention of the the politicians and nonprofits to the channels. There was no coordinated response to help the people in the tunnels after the book came out. So I reached out to HELP of Southern Nevada to form Shine a Light.
So you started Shine a Light as a sort of response to their non-response. What does the organization do for the homeless exactly?
Basically I escort the social workers from HELP into tunnels and show them the terrain. They offer not so much water and blankets but more a way to get people out of tunnels with mental health and drug counseling. It's been really successful. We've helped hundreds of people and housed 80 or 90 people from the tunnels. We'll help them get ID and food stamps. There are a lot of ways to help them besides getting them into housing...But we don't want to do anything that would make them want to stay in tunnels longer than they need to.
So why not just help these people -- why also tell their stories by writing books?
A lot of voices you hear commenting on Las Vegas generally are so-called "winners" -- CEOS, real estate moguls or success stories of Vegas. I find it interesting to talk to "losers" -- to give voice to a different segment here. They've never been asked their opinions on certain subjects.
Have you had to give up a lot to really make this your life's work?
As a staff writer at CityLife, I was doing a lot of first-person advocacy work, which was a great experience, but at times I struggled with worrying about conflicts of interest and becoming too involved. When I left in early 2008 and began working as an independent author and journalist, I felt like I could be more involved, not covering them as news stories...I wanted to be more involved in the community.
You're also telling stories of struggle with "My Week at the Blue Angel." The book expands the issue of homelessness beyond storm drains. In what types of ways are these characters down and out?
It's a collection of creative nonfiction set in trailer parks, weekly motels, sewage plants and storm drains. For instance, when developers cleared out trailer parks in anticipation of high-rise condos years ago, low-income people were being forced out of homes on short notice with nowhere to go. I wrote a story about the trailer parks here and what was happening to people who were being forced out of these long-term homes.
Will you develop another nonprofit based on what you've learned and seen through your "Blue Angel" writings?
"My Week at the Blue Angel" is a lot of the history of Vegas. I've been thinking of doing something related to historic preservation. There's not a lot of activism in that arena. Las Vegas is just seen as a disposable city.
To see what O'Brien experienced in documenting the homeless of Las Vegas, click the slideshow below.
Date: 02/28/11
Image Sources: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326187/Las-Vegas-tunnel-people-How-1-000-people-live-shimmering-strip.html
Dumb, dumber -- and we're dumbest?
From the morons who cut suddenly across four lanes without signaling their last-second exit to the co-worker so inept that you were convinced he spent his childhood eating lead paint, it seemed that locals were just, you know, kind of -- well -- dumb.
That hunch? It's not just you.
Las Vegas has displaced Fresno, Calif., as America's dumbest city based on education levels and intellectual vitality, according to a study from news and opinion website The Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast didn't respond to a request for comment, but the site's findings are important because "regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back" from economic travails, the Daily Beast's editors said in their Tuesday report. "Those without risk a stupor."
Wait -- um, whuh?
Seriously, though: The analysis pierces straight to the heart of an age-old knock on Las Vegas. Some local observers have long lamented that the city won't lure diverse, high-tech businesses as long as it claims a bad rap for its citizens' low educational attainment.
Others counter that Las Vegas is its own kind of town, a nationally recognized entrepreneurial hotbed where The Daily Beast's benchmarks don't apply the way they might play out in other areas.
"We're a unique market. A significant share of our employee base is in service industries, and many of those employees are earning fairly decent wages and have been able to succeed and set up roots here," said local business and government consultant Brian Gordon, a pretty smart guy whose first name also happens to spell "brain."
"Some of those positions don't require higher levels of education. Las Vegas is just different than many other major markets."
To understand how Las Vegas differs from other places, start with how The Daily Beast compiled its study.
The site analyzed the nation's 55 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more residents, evaluating those markets based on nonfiction book sales tracked by research firm Nielsen BookScan; the number of libraries per capita; the ratio of colleges and universities; and the percentage of residents older than 25 with bachelor's and master's degrees -- though when you consider U.S. Department of Education findings that a third of all students in U.S. colleges need remedial math or English instruction, it's not so obvious that a college degree indicates intelligence.
If you tally all of those factors, Las Vegas ranks dead-last among the country's big cities. Of its 1.9 million residents, 14 percent earned bachelor's degrees, and 7 percent hold master's degrees. Las Vegans have bought 1.1 million adult nonfiction books year-to-date, or fewer than one tome per resident. (But hey, we'll go head to head against anybody on adult-video sales!)
No. 1 Boston, by contrast, has a 24 percent penetration rate for bachelor's degrees, while 18 percent of Beantown's population has master's degrees. Its 4.6 million residents have snapped up more than 7 million adult nonfiction books this year.
The final score: Boston's Daily Beast IQ comes in at 176.7, while Las Vegas' Daily Beast IQ totals 3.3.
Ouch.
But none of that makes Bostonians smarter, one local businessman said.
Las Vegas hotelier Stephen Siegel does not have a college degree. He doesn't even have a high school diploma. The native Californian dropped out of ninth grade and, at 15, began working in restaurants. Today, Siegel employs 1,000 people inside properties from the Mount Charleston Resort to the Artisan boutique hotel on Sahara Avenue. He also owns the Siegel Suites chain of extended-stay apartments and office buildings and shopping centers in California, Arizona and Texas.
"I think school is very important. Education is very important," Siegel said. "But having a college degree is only the start. If you don't use the degree, it doesn't mean anything. Having a college degree doesn't mean you'll be successful. It means you went through a program. Knowledge is power, but only if you use it."
Instead of learning in classrooms, Siegel attended what he calls the "hardest and most expensive school there is: real life."
Siegel said Las Vegas is home to legions of entrepreneurs who similarly got their start in the service sector and grabbed a chance to launch their own operation.
From food-and-beverage workers who built catering businesses to cabdrivers who formed transportation companies, the city claims thousands of successful entrepreneurs without much formal higher education. Siegel cited perhaps the highest-profile of them all: Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder, who ranks as the country's 13th wealthiest person, despite failing to finish the degree he started at the City College of New York.
"Las Vegas is 100 percent a different city from any other," Siegel said. "It's a very challenging city. You have to understand the market. You really have to educate yourself out there and put a lot of hard work into surviving in this market. It's harder than in most other places."
Gordon added that Las Vegas was, until the recession devastated the city's construction and hotel sectors, one of the nation's fastest-growing cities for the better part of three decades.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, you couldn't swing a business license without whacking some magazine that had just anointed the city one of the best places to start a company.
That's because businesses and entrepreneurs don't consider college attainment and book sales alone when they're looking to move or open a new operation, Gordon said.
Sure, educational levels and cultural offerings make a difference, but most executives care as well about a city's highway and airport access, its availability and cost of labor, real estate prices and taxes, among other factors. On many of those counts, Las Vegas still has much to offer, Gordon said.
As for the "intellectual vigor" that The Daily Beast's editors say Las Vegas lacks: In the leisure and hospitality space, at least, no other market on the planet bests the city, and that bodes well for the area's economic engine, experts said.
"We're the No. 1 resort and entertainment destination in the world, and not many markets stack up when you look at the core industry of Southern Nevada," Gordon said. "That's been true historically, and it will likely be true going forward."
Which brings us to our final point.
Considering Las Vegas entices upwards of 40 million folks a year from smart markets such as Boston, San Francisco and Denver to drop major dollars on elusive jackpots, $300 tasting menus and hookers (OK, not officially), just how dumb can our city really be?
Using a tabulation that accounts for college educations, nonfiction book sales and the number of universities and libraries, news and opinion website The Daily Beast ranked the country's 55 biggest metropolitan areas by intelligence. Here's what they come up with:
| THE FIVE SMARTEST CITIES | ||||
| City | Bachelor's degrees | Master's degrees | Population | Book sales |
| 1. Boston | 24 percent | 18 percent | 4.6 million | 7 million |
| 2. Hartford-New Haven, Conn. | 19 percent | 15 percent | 2 million | 2.3 million |
| 3. San Francisco-Oakland- San Jose | 26 percent | 17 percent | 6.2 million | 7.8 million |
| 4. Raleigh-Durham, N.C. | 27 percent | 16 percent | 1.6 million | 1.9 million |
| 5. Denver | 25 percent | 13 percent | 2.6 million | 4 million |
| THE FIVE DUMBEST CITIES | ||||
| City | Bachelor's degrees | Master's degrees | Population | Book sales |
| 1. Las Vegas | 14 percent | 7 percent | 1.9 million | 1.1 million |
| 2. San Antonio | 16 percent | 9 percent | 2.1 million | 1.3 million |
| 3. Fresno, Calif. | 11 percent | 6 percent | 1.3 million | 626,000 |
| 4. Houston | 18 percent | 10 percent | 5.9 million | 3.5 million |
| 5. Memphis, Tenn. | 15 percent | 9 percent | .3 million | 767,000 |
| Source: The Daily Beast |
On a losing streak: The effects of America's worst property crash go very wide
THE ECONOMIST (LONDON)—To the many dubious distinctions of Las Vegas, add one more: foreclosure capital of America. According to RealtyTrac, a property-listings firm, one in every ten homes in the city was in some stage of foreclosure last year, almost five times the national rate. In North Las Vegas, a poorer suburb, the figure was one in five. These statistics would be even grislier were it not for lenders’ inability or reluctance to eject all those who are in default at once. People who have managed to hold onto their homes are far from lucky: property prices are around 60% below the peak they reached in 2006, leaving 70% of homeowners in the area owing more on their mortgage than their property is worth. (Nationally, the proportion of homes that are “under water” is a still-awful 23%.)
All this makes Las Vegas the most extreme example of the many cities in America’s sunbelt that grew rapidly thanks to the cheap and abundant credit of recent decades, only to suffer fearsome property crashes during the subprime crisis and the ensuing recession. The ten most foreclosure-afflicted cities in the country are all in Arizona, California or Nevada, notes RealtyTrac. Of the ten most foreclosure-prone states, only one—Michigan, with its car-related problems—lies outside the sunny south and west. As these places are now discovering, it is not just unfortunate property-owners who feel the reverberations of such monumental busts, nor are their effects confined to pocketbooks.
The signs of the crash are everywhere in Las Vegas. The city’s outer suburbs are eerily quiet, thanks to the preponderance of unsold and foreclosed homes. There are few lights in any windows, and few cars on the roads. Banners and boards advertising hugely discounted housing flap and rattle mournfully in the desert wind. In North Las Vegas every second house on some streets carries a “For Rent” sign, offering rates of as little as $150 a month. One or two houses on each street have been boarded up and abandoned. Even on the city’s famous “strip” of cavernous casinos and high-rise hotels, the razzle-dazzle is marred by the grey concrete hulks of abandoned building projects.
When a property crash becomes as pervasive as Las Vegas’s, explains Devin Reiss, a former head of the Nevada Association of Realtors (NVAR), it takes on a life of its own. Nasser Daneshvary of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has found that the value of homes near foreclosed properties falls faster than the market as a whole, until so many homes are foreclosed that average property prices fall to the level of foreclosures. That, in turn, leaves more homeowners deeper in negative equity, saddled with mortgages that vastly exceed the value of their homes. NVAR reckons that as many as a quarter of those who suffer foreclosure do so by choice, to escape such a trap. Locals swap stories of cunning borrowers who buy second homes for a song before deliberately defaulting on their first mortgages.
This sort of downward spiral, in turn, has a dire effect on local governments, which tend to rely on property taxes for much of their revenue. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, expects its take from property taxes will fall by over a fifth this year. The problem is all the more severe, says Susan Brager, the chairman of the county commission, since demand for the services the county provides has risen amid the downturn. Local authorities also end up picking up the pieces when developers go bust or homes are abandoned, leaving fees unpaid, infrastructure to be completed and property to maintain.
All of this ripples through the local economy. The construction business, once a mainstay, has withered. Local governments are trimming their staff. Some of those who have lost their homes or jobs have moved away: the population of Nevada started falling in 2008 for the first time in decades. And even those who stick around may be infected by the surrounding gloom. Alan Swinson, a builder living in North Las Vegas, says he has struggled to keep up with his mortgage in the past and is now determined to scrimp and save all he can to ward off future calamities. One recent study found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that high levels of foreclosure tended to drag down not just investment in property but also car sales.
The knock-on effects go further, argues Terrie D’Antonio, the head of Help of Southern Nevada, a charity. Moving house can cut people off from their friends, churches, schools and community groups. Many have lost their homes because they have lost their jobs. All this leaves them isolated and depressed. And that can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, juvenile delinquency and so on. The number of people turning to Help about all these problems has jumped in recent years, Ms D’Antonio says. A 2009 survey of Latino families around the country whose homes had been foreclosed had similar findings: amid the stress, marriages broke down; family members fell out; children’s academic performance suffered.
The proliferation of foreclosures has impinged on politics, too. Local politicians all have pet schemes to pep up the property market. Democrats at both state and federal level have tried to cast themselves as friends to struggling homeowners, voting for various measures to encourage forbearance by banks and tide over borrowers in arrears. Shelley Berkley, the Democrat who represents Las Vegas in Congress, huffs and puffs about Republican plans to shelve such schemes: “Talk about kicking people when they’re down!” But Republicans in districts with lots of foreclosures are more sympathetic to the over-indebted than the party as a whole. Joe Heck, the Republican who represents many of the city’s suburbs, recently cast the sole Republican vote to preserve one of the programmes Ms Berkley is so worried about. His predecessor, Dina Titus, a Democrat, was booted out of office last year amid anger about the state of the economy—yet another victim of America’s housing bust.
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