Las Vegas is Home

The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is going to be hustle and bustle this weekend with the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 slated for this Sunday, March 11th. It seems some people are questioning if it’s going to be a weekend like it was for the NBA Finals with 160,000 thousand race fans in town.

Several reports from that weekend focused not on the game itself but the chaotic atmosphere surrounding it — interminable flight delays at McCarran International Airport, standstill traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard, and a sense of lawlessness on parts of the city’s prime tourist area, The Strip. “Vegas screwed up,” wrote ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, who took the city to task for not putting enough police on the streets.

Columnist Jason Whitlock of AOL.com agreed, calling All-Star weekend “an unmitigated failure.” The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported 403 arrests over the long weekend, with 231 of those arrested coming from outside Southern Nevada, and 239 for prostitution-related crimes. And now here comes NASCAR, which according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority brought 94,875 people and a non-gaming economic impact of $129.3 million to town last year.

[tags]las vegas, nascar, DaimlerChrysler 400[/tags]

The whole point of bring the NBA All Star game here was to prove to the NBA commission that Las Vegas could be the next home of an NBA team. Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman has been trying to get a team here for over a year now, and hopefully after all that happened this weekend they will still want to come.

We had four shotings in two incidents resulting in three people who were critically injured, and over 300 arrest on various charges. To say I am disappointed is putting it mildly.

One man was shot in the hip inside the parking garage of the MGM Grand. He declined to press charges, and police are not following up on the incident, Montoya said.

Instead they are focused on the more serious shooting, which occurred outside the Minxx strip club on Wynn Road near Tropicana Avenue.

Three people were shot after three or four patrons of the club were escorted outside for fighting. One of them opened fire, wounding two employees and a patron near the club’s entrance, police said.

Blood spatter could be seen Monday morning on one of the double doors at the club.

One worker was shot in the chest, one was shot in the arm and leg, and a female patron was grazed in the head by another bullet, Montoya said. He said all three victims were hospitalized in critical condition.

Montoya said police had heard speculation that NFL cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Tennessee Titans had been involved in the shooting, but those reports had not been confirmed. Jones has had several run-ins with authorities in West Virginia and Tennessee.

Montoya also said he did not know whether any other celebrities were at the club during the time of the shooting. There were reports that rapper Nelly was among the celebrities who had been in the club just before the shooting.

Jones’ agent, Michael Huyghue of Axcess Sports & Entertainment in Jacksonville, Fla., said late Monday afternoon that he knew nothing of the incident and would have been told if his client were the subject of a police investigation.

Because Jones is not a “poster child” for model behavior, he has become “an easy target for people to say he’s involved in this kind of thing,” Huyghue said.

As part of the effort to identify who fired the bullets at Minxx, police were interviewing about 40 witnesses who had been at the club, Montoya said.

Things are all a buzz here in Las Vegas for the big NBA All-Star Game Weekend, Feb. 18 at the Thomas & Mack Center. Not only is the game a big deal, but the advertising for this game has been outrageous here in town! Everywhere you look the hotels have decked their buildings out for this.

There are close to 500 very upset people here in Las Vegas today. They had booked trips to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii through a local company called CEI Sports Tours and found themselves grounded at McCarran Airport this morning. It turns out, that CEI Sports Tours never even booked their flights for them! A sales rep from the company said that they can’t get in contact with the owner, although he got a text message from him saying they didn’t have the money to book the flights. I smell a rat!

One group of family and friends was looking forward to going to Hawaii. Their bags were packed. They were ready to go.

Mark Kerr said, “We have family coming in from D.C., from Wyoming, and about ten of us from Las Vegas.”

The trip was a year in the making. It included going to the NFL Pro Bowl among other things.

“For me and my wife, it was our five-year anniversary, so it was definitely a special trip for us to do that,” said Kerr.

But now the trip is off.

“Disappointment big time. Everything from crying to you name it,” he said.

Source: Trip to Nowhere… Hundreds Duped Out of Hawaii Trip

[tags]ceisportstours.com,NFL Pro Bowl,hawaii[/tags]