CityCenter: Guilty by association

This new attack ad, fired today, represents the latest salvo in what might be called The War Over CityCenter. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), not having been shy to take credit for CityCenter’s completion, is fair game. Where the ad may cross the foul line is in its frontal assault on the corporate practices of MGM Mirage and CEO Jim Murren, who were quick to counterattack. In one this brouhaha’s most surrealistic moment to date, MGM’s recent umbrage over a (proposed, not passed) $32 million increase in the Nevada Gaming Control Board‘s budget is now being used as a stick to beat it … from the right.

A parallel spot (“Harry Reid Ad 1”) erroneously states that Nevada taxpayers bore the cost of Dubai World‘s licensing in Nevada. As Democratic Party kingmaker Billy Vassiliadis tried to make a big deal during the special legislative session, casinos and their owners pay for their own regulation. “Billy V” attempted to darkly impute some form of ethical malfeasance to this arrangement — an argument which, if taken to its logical end, would result in the de-funding of casino regulation in the Silver State.

Both ads also accuse of Dubai of employing “slave labor.” It may be a semantic distinction but I’ve read quite a bit about the deplorable treatment of workers in everybody’s favorite emirate and the 19th working conditions there are actually closer to indentured servitude than to slavery. Not an appealing choice, either way … but “slavery” makes the better soundbite, yes?

Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum has been the ruination of his country. To say that Dubai is most enlightened nation in the Persian Gulf is like saying some kinds of influenza are preferable to others — a very relative compliment. But MGM Mirage is not underwriting his despotism, from where I sit. If Murren wants to take the sheik for a 10% stake in MGM stock plus half the sticker price (less cost overruns) of CityCenter, that’s money going out of Dubai and into the good old U.S. of A. Now where’s the harm in that?

Speaking of MGM … if you’ve got tickets for the Hollywood Theater at the Green Monster (aka MGM Grand), better get there good and early. Its ticket booth is a slow and disorganized operation. Seriously, all-volunteer Las Vegas Little Theatre has MGM’s people beat hands down. Maybe LVLT can lend a few hours of expertise to MGM to show how it’s done.

So much for that. The key witness in Greenspun Corp.’s lawsuit against Station Casinos has turned out to be — quite literally — a loose cannon. He wound up in the pokey over the weekend on quite a variety of felonies. That swirling sound you hear is Greenspun’s lawsuit going down the toilet. It looks like Station wins this one without having to lift a legal brief.

Who asked him? Seriously, who gives a hoot what Andrew Dice Clay thinks of Jason Alexander‘s The Donny Clay Experience? Alexander is playing the Strip and “Dice” is exiled to the Las Vegas Hilton (which, in a dubious victory, lured him from the fading charms of the Riviera). Alexander’s rep wisely took the high road and, to whatever extent The Donny Clay Experience has a future at Planet Ho, Harrah’s Entertainment should turn a deaf ear to Clay … just as the general public did years ago.