{"id":7103,"date":"2011-07-13T12:13:55","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T20:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=7103"},"modified":"2020-04-24T05:50:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T13:50:10","slug":"family-friendly-vegas-is-back-putting-the-gone-in-longoria-a-mess-in-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/family-friendly-vegas-is-back-putting-the-gone-in-longoria-a-mess-in-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"“Family friendly Vegas” is back; Putting the “gone” in Longoria; A mess in Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Actually, it never left, as any casual visit to the Strip will prove. But, strapped for a marketing position, Trump International<\/strong> is going for the wholesome niche with a vengeance<\/a>. Stuck with a lemon, Trump marketing execs are making lemonade out of the hotel’s smoke-free environment and lack of gambling. The predictable sneering has begun but …<\/p>\n

Can you blame them?<\/strong> With only 26% of Trump’s condo inventory having been sold, no casino and rooms priced to move, the property had to turn weakness into strength. The rooms are nice — if bland — and you needn’t worry about the douchebag\/tramp-stamp crowd making the off-Strip pilgrimage to Trump.<\/p>\n

You can’t say that about The Mirage<\/strong>, where the wife and I recently passed a half-conscious bikini-clad young woman, being escorted\/carried off the property by a man and a dwarf. The lady had just blown chunks on the “out” escalator and appeared about to do so again, whilst the dwarf glared at passersby. I guess he was the “muscle.” It was very Fellini-meets-Jackass<\/em>. Only in Vegas, folks.<\/p>\n

\"\"She’s (somewhat) outta here<\/strong>. Wedged in at the back of Crystals<\/strong>, actress Eva Longoria<\/strong>‘s nightclub Eve<\/strong> was about as locationally challenged as it could be. Heck, there are “gentleman’s clubs” on side streets in grimy industrial districts that see more traffic. Trying to lure the bottle-service crowd into the pharaoh’s tomb that is Crystals is rather more difficult. Appropriately enough, Daily Fiasco<\/em> broke the story that Eve is being placed in a bankruptcy-induced coma or worse<\/a>. (Attached restaurant<\/a> Beso<\/strong> remains open and modestly profitable, happy to report.) The official line is that the club is simply going through a makeover<\/a> of indefinite duration and that — coulda fooled me — nightclubbers are in short supply during the summer months.<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to imagine<\/strong> that a nightclub less than two years old could already been “pass\u00e9,” per the official line. Also, the $2 million expenditure would \"\"have to get the assent of the bankruptcy court, which is still waiting for an Eve\/Beso reorganization plan, due last month and still AWOL. And then there’s the small matter of the $2.3 million Beso owes Crystals. But in this last respect Longoria appears to have CityCenter<\/strong> by the balls. Given the choice of inadequate levels of business at Eve or another empty storefront, the mall has little choice but to be — as Vegas Inc<\/em>. puts it — “supportive.”<\/p>\n

\"\"There are limits to tribal sovereignty<\/strong> and the Mississippi Choctaws<\/strong> just ran into them. G-Men descended on tribal headquarters, ostensibly to sort out a disputed election. One of the issues roiling tribal leadership was its contract with Atlanta<\/strong>-based Mercury Gaming Management<\/strong>, a company with a respectable pedigree in tribal operations and overseer of the tribe’s Pearl River Resort<\/strong>. However, when the feds start examining those confiscated Choctaw hard drives, who knows where this could lead? There’s already a tangled and seamy skein connecting the tribe with convicted felon “Casino Jack” Abramoff<\/strong> and former Alabama<\/strong> Gov. Robert “Bingo Bob” Riley<\/strong> (R). The latter’s former congressional press secretary was none other than Abramoff’s dimwitted co-conspirator Michael Scanlon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The extent to which Riley (left<\/em>) was doing the bidding of his Choctaw benefactors when he tried to extirpate electronic bingo in Alabama remains a cloud hanging over his political future (if any). Had Riley gotten his way, his anti-bingo jihad<\/em> would have climaxed with an armed invasion of the Poarch Creek Indian<\/strong> reservation. When word came down from the Obama administration that this would be uncool, Riley’s task force had to publicly back off, ending the Great Bingo Crusade with a whimper rather than a bang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually, it never left, as any casual visit to the Strip will prove. But, strapped for a marketing position, Trump International is going for the wholesome niche with a vengeance. Stuck with a lemon, Trump marketing execs are making lemonade … 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":[135,65,56,28,42,14,4,117,53,11,35,33,25,9,19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103"}],"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=7103"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26870,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions\/26870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}