For starters, we're not sure we agree with your "hatchet job" characterization. True, Joel Stein is not the best messenger. He's penned very rah-rah pieces about Las Vegas in general and Station Casino specifically, so his passive-aggressive turn of face ("I have come for revenge.") is lacking something in credibility. His use of dubious hyperbole – "This has been the first major recession Las Vegas has experienced since it became a real city" – doesn't help, either.
However, his underlying thesis – that Las Vegas went from the top of a bubble to "the deepest crater" – is factually sound. Tip-dependent employees have been hit particularly hard and Las Vegans in general are seeing the American Dream crumble beneath their feet. (We'e been taking our lumps here at LVA, too.)
Stein's beef is that Vegas got too big for its britches, too in love with upscale clientele and high-end pricing, and in the process lost its identity as a bargain-oriented destination. That's a point that our own Anthony Curtis has been making for some time. The main difference is that he, unlike Stein, displays no schadenfreude when he says it.
The symptoms described by Stein are too accurate: Runaway foreclosures? Check. Excess supply of hotel rooms? Check. High rates of vacancy? Check. Neonopolis defunct? Check. Las Vegas Art Museum (and several other cultural institutions) closed? Check.
"I never realized an economic defeat could look so much like a military one," he writes and if you've driven down the Strip lately you'll know what he means. Anthony's office, for instance, enjoys splendid views of an unfinished, stalled Wyndham, the empty shell that is the Octavius Tower of Caesars Palace, and the Cosmopolitan, which was seized by the bank and won't open for another year.
Very few Las Vegans have the wealth that enables Venetian/Palazzo owner Sheldon Adelson to shrug off the present crisis, saying, "A billion dollars doesn't buy what it used to." Heck, Adelson himself had to abruptly pull the plug on St. Regis. Its unfinished bulk now sits between his two hotels like an enormous, broken front tooth.
Stein may sound excessively harsh when he calls Las Vegas "this city in the desert that creates nothing, the world's largest ghost town in waiting." But, as he notes, Las Vegas' death has been foretold many times before and the current doldrums have, by driving prices down, actually brought people back. Remember, the Time article was written by someone who couldn't get a room at THEhotel (one of the Strip's most upscale places) because it was packed ... on a Tuesday, no less. So there's cause for hope.
We ran the Brooke Boemio matter past George F. Ogilvie, a partner at the local firm of McDonald Carano Wilson. and here's what he told us:
"This is really a little outside of my practice area, so I certainly cannot speak from a position of authority, but I do not know of any "law" that the agent has broken, particularly if she tells her clients to stop paying the mortgage on their original homes AFTER she has sold them a new home. I would think that she may have some potential civil liability (perhaps for intentional interference with contractual relations) if she was recommending this course of action at the time that she was trying to get her clients to purchase the new home.
"The elements of intentional interference with contractual relations are:
"1) There exists a valid contract between plaintiff (in this case, the mortgage lender) and a third party (in this case the homeowner); "2) Defendant (the real estate agent) knew of the contract; "3) Defendant committed intentional acts intended or designed to disrupt the contractual relationship; "4) There was an actual disruption of the contract; and, "5) Plaintiff sustained damages as a result.
"Under those elements, I guess a case could be made that a real estate agent telling a client to stop paying a mortgage AFTER purchasing a new home COULD result in civil liability, but the courts generally like to see some financial interest in the inducement; that is why I think it would be a stronger case if the recommendation was made prior to the purchase of the new home. If the recommendation was made prior to the purchase, it would be viewed as being made with the intent to induce the homeowner to purchase the new home so that the agent could make a commission.
"All of that being said, there may be some federal law (or state law for that matter) that I do not know about that prohibits the agent from making such a recommendation at any time."
