22 September 2009

Too much even for sin city?

Authorities in Las Vegas are citing "topless and lewd activity" and extremely drunken gamblers as examples of private clubs gone wild -- a little too much even by long-existing sin city standards.

For example:

• Gaming regulators fined Planet Hollywood casino $500,000 this summer for lewd actions and club-goers wandering around in "various states of consciousness."

• The Rio closed its Sapphire pool after 10 people were arrested on charges of prostitution and drug crimes.

• Even more recently, on Labor Day weekend, eight more arrests on similar charges were made at the Hard Rock Hotel's pool club, Rehab.

"The quarrel is not, 'You guys are offering entertainment that's going to offend Middle America.' We all want to keep Middle America coming to us to have fun. But we have rules," Randall Sayre of the Nevada Gaming Control Board told the Chicago Tribune.

During the heyday of the "What happens here, stays here" tourism campaign, the must-have accessory for any Las Vegas Strip casino was a pulsating nightclub that lured Hollywood starlets and drunken tourists willing to pay for a few hours of shimmer, said the Tribune.

Clubs have been a fairly recent development in Vegas, pulling in millions of dollars from high-volume sales of liquor and special seating. But the venues, jostling for the same young crowd, have a penchant for envelope-pushing, Sayre said

In the last two years, Clark County has warned clubs about a wet-boxer-shorts contest and women shedding shirts at events named "Lose the Tan Lines" and "Boobs or Bust."
Some clubs launched stripping contests; others tried to sneak around no-nudity ordinances by slathering women in body paint.

"It seemed our position that body paint was nudity was not completely understood," Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin said.

The state Gaming Control Board has told casinos it was concerned about reports of violent, excessively drunk and underage club-goers.

In the last year, authorities have noticed an upswing in prostitution and narcotics crimes at Strip hot spots, said Officer Bill Cassell of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Where does it lead? Is sin city no more?

By David Wilkening