Columnist Jeff German: Cities' casinos quite revealing

JEFF GERMAN is a senior investigative reporter. His column also appears in the Las Vegas SUN on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at 259-4067 or on the Internet at [email protected]

HISTORIANS often note how the intense rivalry between Las Vegas and Reno has dominated Nevada politics over the years.

Each city has a distorted perception of the other.

Reno residents see Las Vegas as a city of hucksters and hoodlums. Las Vegans think of Reno as a town of rednecks and country bumpkins.

Neither perception is correct.

But the concept of this North-South rivalry still dominates politics at the Nevada Legislature.

At the risk of furthering the rivalry, I find it irresistible to comment on the latest hotel-casino projects in both cities.

In Reno, Max Baer Jr. hopes to build a $130 million resort themed after the "Beverly Hillbillies" television show. Baer played Jethro Bodine on the hit show that aired from 1962-1971.

In Las Vegas, a group of Hollywood investors wants to build a $130 million casino named after Bugsy Siegel, the murdered underworld figure many consider the father of modern-day Las Vegas. Siegel built the Flamingo, the first casino on the Strip, in the late 1940s.

What are the odds of both cities going on a nostalgic kick at the same time?

In fairness to Renoites, there apparently is some opposition to Baer's project.

Civic leaders apparently think the "Hillbillies" image might be a little tacky, even for Reno.

But Baer has an answer for that.

"What do you think is the right image for Reno?" Baer was quoted as asking last week. "Other people have called Reno a one-horse town for a long time."

Hang in there, Max. Reno really wants your casino. It's just playing hard to get.

You've got to believe that someone up north is itching to open a restaurant featuring Granny's vittles.

In Las Vegas, meanwhile, where we're running out of themes for casinos, it was only a matter of time before someone would reclaim Bugsy's name.

According to Solomon Weingarten, the chief investor in the proposed Bugsy's hotel-casino, plans are to take Las Vegas back to Siegel's day 50 years ago.

Weingarten wants the hotel to incorporate the "personal touch" of old Las Vegas.

Everyone, after all, insists that Las Vegas was more fun when the mob ran the town.

Isn't it nice to see Las Vegas and Reno revisiting their roots?

* The power of the Las Vegas Strip in national politics never ceases to amaze me.

Two of the casino industry's biggest CEOs -- Steve Wynn of Mirage Resorts Inc. and Terry Lanni of MGM Grand Inc. -- are hosting a fund-raiser in Las Vegas on July 13 for Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

Rangel is the ranking Democrat on the influential House Ways and Means Committee.

He's also one of the key players in last week's deal that led the House to pass the historic IRS Restructuring Act.

That's the bill in which the gaming industry and Nevada's congressional delegation were able to attach an amendment barring the IRS from taxing free meals casinos provide their employees.

The Senate is expected to pass the IRS bill when it returns from its Fourth of July recess.

President Clinton might even have the bill signed and gift-wrapped by the time Rangel comes to Las Vegas.

Needless to say, the timing of the Las Vegas fund-raiser seems more than just a coincidence.

One casino insider, however, says with a straight face that the event had been planned for a couple of months.

* Rumors abound about the sudden resignation of Nancy Mohr Kennedy, the executive director of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.

Kennedy told Chairwoman Kay Cole James she was quitting for personal reasons after only eight months on the job.

No one seems to know the real reason for her departure. But there's been talk that friction might have occurred between her and James, a rising star in the Christian right.

James, however, has left no hint of friction. James did nothing but praise Kennedy when she announced her resignation earlier this month.

Kennedy, a former Reagan White House aide, was popular with most of the panel's nine members, including all three with gaming ties.

Her decision to leave has to be considered a setback in the commission's two-year study of gambling across the country.

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