Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Strip casinos remain in operation, but on alert

Despite terrorist attacks around the nation today, the Las Vegas Strip's famed casino resorts remained in full operation, though at a state of heightened alert.

The reason is simple -- tens of thousands of people are staying in the Strip's hotel rooms, and with McCarran International Airport closed down, they did not not have anywhere else to go.

"Where are we going to put all of these people?" said Tim Donovan, head of security at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino and president of the Las Vegas Security Chiefs Association. "We're talking hundreds of thousands of people stranded here. Hoover Dam (the main route into Arizona) is shut down. We have a responsibility to all these people stuck here.

"The last thing we want to do is start a panic. That's the biggest thing we're confronting right now, how to assure safety without creating a panic."

The one exception was the Stratosphere Tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. This morning, the Stratosphere issued a statement saying the 110-story tower had been closed until further notice, though the rest of the hotel-casino remained in operation.

"As with the rest of the nation, we are taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our guests," the Stratosphere's statement read. "We are working with law enforcement officials to stay abreast of recent developments."

"What's scary is that icons are the targets, and Las Vegas has a few of those," said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. "It's terribly unnerving."

But local and federal officials haven't indicated that Las Vegas has particular reason to be concerned, casino industry officials said.

"There is no indication that there's any kind of serious threat in Nevada or Las Vegas," Donovan said. "Everything is just precautionary."

Steps are being taken to accommodate guests who are being forced to extend their stay in Las Vegas, though this is expected to be offset by a lack of in-bound travelers in the near future. In Atlantic City, Park Place Entertainment Corp.'s four resorts were taking in travelers from flights re-routed to the southern New Jersey resort city.

"We're in discussions about how to deal with our guests," said John Marz, vice president of marketing at Mandalay Resort Group. "Security has been alerted. Our main concern is the guests stranded here, how to deal with that. We're putting together a plan right now, just like every other hotel property in town is doing."

"About half our normal flow (of guests) have been cut off," said Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM MIRAGE. "On a Tuesday, that's not extraordinarily impactful, to the extent we tend to turn more rooms on Thursday through Sunday. For those unable to leave, we'll do everything we can to accommodate them."

Casino security measures have been on the increase ever since the Gulf War in 1991, Feldman said. After each terrorist strike -- the first World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing -- those measures were updated further.

"We find ourselves today operating at a different level of normal security than we were 10 years ago," Feldman said. "We've heightened it one step further (today)."

Guards have been posted at loading docks at all MGM MIRAGE properties to search all deliveries, Feldman said. And unattended bags from group travelers will go through special security checks -- though with the airport closed, few group travelers are expected.

Contingency plans are in place to deal with potential attacks. But only so much can be done to prevent them.

"In a free and open society, you can only plan so much when it comes to a terrorist attack," Feldman said. "All of us, up and down the Strip, all have disaster plans, whether it's a meteor, a fire, an earthquake or a terrorist attack. (But) terrorist attacks can't be prevented."

On such an unprecedented day, few can say what the impact to the Las Vegas gaming industry will be -- or how many people will continue coming to Las Vegas once America's airports open up once again.

"This is analogous to going to war," said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. "I think it's very hard to read (the impact on tourism) at this point.

"In the broader scheme of things, people will have trouble taking a casual weekend away when things look like Armageddon."

In the light of the apparent massive loss of life, some didn't even want to attempt to think about business.

"This is one of the biggest tragedies in American history," said Jeffrey Logsdon, gaming analyst with Gerard Klauer Mattison in Los Angeles. "I'm not sure that individual recreational pursuits are going to be a priority at this time.

"Until some time goes by, I'm not sure anybody's going to be able to think about the economic impact."

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