Several Venetian restaurants, shops approved to open

County inspectors also were scheduled to determine Saturday whether to open the seventh and eighth floors of the resort's 32-story hotel tower.

But the bulk of the hotel's 3,036 rooms remained closed, as inspectors continued their testing of the megaresort's smoke- and fire-management systems.

The testing continued Saturday, with county officials hoping to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy by Monday for the complete tower.

County officials issued a temporary certificate for the early Tuesday opening of the Strip casino and later approved the opening of four restaurants and the tower's bottom six floors.

But the testing forced Venetian officials to transfer as many as 2,600 Blockbuster Video conventioneers to other Strip hotels.

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