{"id":18351,"date":"2016-06-07T14:15:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T22:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18351"},"modified":"2022-11-15T15:37:55","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T23:37:55","slug":"the-end-of-an-era-aquinnah-tribe-beats-the-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-end-of-an-era-aquinnah-tribe-beats-the-odds\/","title":{"rendered":"The end of an era; Aquinnah tribe beats the odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Free parking on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> bit the dust yesterday, as MGM Resorts International<\/strong> starting charging for the privilege of using its casino-hotels, starting with Aria<\/strong>, Vdara<\/strong>, Monte Carlo<\/strong> \"Ariaand New York-New York<\/strong>. Today, parking fees hit the low-rollers at Circus Circus<\/strong>, Excalibur<\/strong> and Luxor<\/strong>, tomorrow they go into effect at MGM Grand<\/strong> and Bellagio<\/strong>, while the blow doesn’t fall on Mandalay Bay<\/strong> and The Mirage<\/strong> until June 13 — a most inauspicious 13th. Other casino companies continue to play the wait-and-see game, holding off emulation of MGM until they can measure just how much backlash it gets. The Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em>‘s Buck Wargo<\/strong> inspected the new system and found at least two customers already hopping mad about it. (Rolling out the change on the hottest weekend of the year can’t have helped.)<\/p>\n

On the plus side, MGM is adding infrastructure (mainly a system of tiny lights) that makes it much easier to identify available parking spaces. On the other hand, the payment regime — and especially the exemption from it for Nevada<\/strong> citizens — is so complicated it makes your head hurt<\/a>. Whoever conceived it was obviously a disciple of Rube Goldberg<\/strong>. MGM contends that the parking fees are necessary to offset the $36 million in parking-garage upgrades, as well as the new, $54 million parking garage that will be built at Excalibur. However, in view of the way that MGM is throwing money at the East Coast hand over fist, this sudden concern for thrift doesn’t entirely convince.<\/p>\n

* In a surprising development, the U.S. Department of Justice<\/strong> has sided against a federal judge<\/a> and with the Aquinnah Wampanoag<\/strong>, which is seeking to open a casino on Martha’s Vineyard<\/strong>. In weighing in on the tribe’s behalf, the DoJ cited Bureau of Affairs<\/strong> and National Indian Gaming Commission<\/strong> opinions friendly to the Aquinnah band. Predictably diverse reactions ensued from the town and the tribe. The latter’s chairman, Tobias Vanderhoop<\/strong> said Justice’s intervention \u201creaffirms our right to govern our ancestral tribal lands.\u201d Martha’s Vineyard lawyer Ron Rappaport<\/strong> was unimpressed, though, telling the Boston Globe<\/em>, \u201cThe same arguments have been considered before and rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n

To recap, the tribe signed away its gaming privileges in in 1987 in return for a large reservation. However, with the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act<\/strong> in 1988, the Aquinnah argued that IGRA overrode their previous settlement with Martha’s Vineyard. More recently, federal Judge Dennis Saylor IV<\/strong> ruled that the tribe failed to demonstrate a convincing governmental structure, seemingly dooming the Aquinnah quest for a 300-machine slot parlor. The case now moves to the appeals-court level, where it remains to be seen how weight the collective opinions of the DoJ, BIA and NIGC carry.<\/p>\n

* Arizona<\/strong> Director of Gaming Daniel Bergin<\/strong> is trying to poke his snout<\/a> into the inner workings of the Tohono O’odham Nation<\/strong>, as part of his crusade to bar the tribe from having Class III gambling. He wants access to the contents of closed-door tribal meetings dating back to 2002. That’s when Phoenix<\/strong>-area voters approved a ballot initiative that \"Tohonoseemed (the operative word) to shut the area to additional tribal gaming. Thanks to a loophole in the ballot language — and a land settlement with the federal government — the Tohono O’odham were able to sidestep the ban and build their own casino. Admittedly, this was done in secretive fashion: The land was bought by a dummy corporation and the tribe didn’t make its land-into-trust intentions public until 2009. For its part, the tribe is asserting “absolute privilege” as a sovereign nation in response to Bergin’s probe. The present, Class II casino appears to be a fact of life with which Bergin will have to live. However, he could still impede Class III status — although Arizona has been getting its ass handed to it in court by the Tohono O’odham on a regular basis. Call it payback time.<\/p>\n

* Columbia Sussex<\/strong> has lost every round of its attempt to demolish its former casino-project site, Bavarian Brewery<\/strong>, in Covington<\/strong>, Kentucky<\/strong>. But that’s not stopping ColSux from exhausting all the appeals in the book, in a case that appears headed for the Kentucky Supreme Court. When all is said and done, the brewery should be designated as a memorial to ex-Gov. Steve Beshear<\/strong>‘s failed attempts to bring casino gambling to the Bluegrass State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Free parking on the Las Vegas Strip bit the dust yesterday, as MGM Resorts International starting charging for the privilege of using its casino-hotels, starting with Aria, Vdara, Monte Carlo and New York-New York. Today, parking fees hit the low-rollers … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[109,15,116,112,11,9,100,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31934,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18351\/revisions\/31934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}