Las Vegas celebrates New Year's Eve with fireworks, security

LAS VEGAS - Lured by cheap hotel rooms and a half-million dollars worth of fireworks, New Year's Eve revelers flocked late Monday to Las Vegas' glittery Strip to ring in 2002.

"I love America," said Tyson Davis, 20, from Hyrum, Utah, one of a group of six friends celebrating in front of the Circus Circus Hotel-Casino. Davis, a Navy petty officer third-class, said he was celebrating with his friends, including Derek Cziraky, 20, of Detroit, an Army recruit who enters the service in a couple of days.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," said Cziraky, as fireworks began from the top of nearby hotels.

"Happy New Year, dudes," he said.

Las Vegas police reported few mishaps on the strip and in downtown Las Vegas where the scene on the Fremont Street Experience included a large and lively crowd - many wearing hats and tiaras and blowing on noisemakers.

Some in the crowd began spontaneous dancing to several bands, including "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy."

Police said after midnight that 17 people had been arrested and 56 were given summons throughout the night, a drop from the 300 people arrested last year.

"This has been an extremely calm crowd, very friendly, very respectful, said Lt. Vincent Cannito.

Erika Brandvik, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said big crowds of revelers, tourists and gamblers were expected this year - along with extra security.

Vehicles were stopped and drivers required to produce photo identification at parking garages for hotels like New York-New York, where a street corner memorial of T-shirts and signs remembering the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was removed for the evening.

Orange-vested guards checked visitors at hotel entrances, collecting glass containers and examining backpacks.

"Security is extremely tight," Brandvik said, "but it's going to be a fun Las Vegas-style New Year's."

Tracking reservations and projections of 97 percent occupancy at the city's 125,000 hotel rooms, the authority was predicting 282,000 people in town to mark the passing of a year beset by terrorism, war and heartache. That would be 5,000 fewer than New Year's 2000-2001.

With tourism slumping after the Sept. 11 attacks, even top-end Las Vegas hotels cut room rates to attract guests. The 3,005-room Bellagio reduced some rates from $799 per night to about $599 - and reported it sold out.

Fireworks by Grucci, the show producer, promised the biggest New Year's fireworks show ever - seven-minutes and 11 seconds of choreographed explosions from 13 hotel-casino towers, two other sites and the downtown Fremont Street Experience. The tab for the midnight show was being picked up by the convention authority.

Meanwhile, FBI and local police officials said they had received no specific threats targeting Nevada or its two major cities, Las Vegas and Reno. Police were taking no chances, however.

In Reno, police turned the downtown Virginia Street casino district into a New Year's Eve pedestrian mall for the first time by placing the main drag behind concrete barriers. Bomb technicians and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled parking garages and mingled with celebrants.

Officers on horseback, foot and golf carts maintained a presence among the milling celebrants. "We always hope for the best, but we have to prepare for the worst," said Reno police Lt. Ron Donnelly.

On Lake Tahoe's south shore, officers from a half-dozen agencies stood by as thousands embraced the new year in the casino corridor. U.S. 50, the only road through town, was closed.

"If we all had our druthers, this thing would have gone away a long time ago," said Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini, a veteran of 25 years of enforcing the law during the annual revelry.

Relatively mild temperatures, in the 40s in Reno and around freezing at Tahoe, favored the crowds, but no problems were reported. Officials tentatively estimated the crowds at 40,000-50,000 in both locations.

In Las Vegas, police Lt. Vincent Cannito said almost 1,200 patrol officers, including 200 corrections officers, would mix with the crowd on and around the Strip.

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