Viva Lascivious Las Vegas!

by Emily Hudson

As pop star Regina Spektor once said, “Summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage,” and it is definitely summer in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The sun beats down on Las Vegas Boulevard as the tourists and locals swarm the sidewalks and casinos, looking for the next exciting distraction. Lights flash in the slot machine-filled lobbies of the Pallagio hotel, Caesar’s Palace, Treasure Island and the Venetian. Every Black Jack table is full, and the empty seats in front of the “penny slots” beckon passers-by to sit down and try their luck.

No matter when you arrive at your Vegas destination, there will invariably be something happening somewhere.

People from all over the world come to Vegas. Walking down the strip I ran into Stefan and Sandra Weissmann, a young couple from Straubing, Germany who flew to Vegas for a four-day weekend with their family. 

The Weissmann’s stood in front of the unnaturally blue waters of the Pallagio hotel, holding hands and drinking in the Vegas atmosphere.

“We’ve been here since Monday, and we have to leave tomorrow,” Stefan said smiling broadly behind his aviators, his German dialect drawing attention from people passing by. “It’s such a wonderful place. We just came to have fun and to play!” 

As if the bright lights and the seemingly never-ending list of attractions weren’t enough of a draw, the people in Vegas are incredibly nice. An employee of the local Deseret Industries smiled and chatted as she bagged up my thrift store finds, and fellow sidewalkers smiled and struck up conversations. It’s dubious, however whether that joviality is influenced by the never-ending supply of alcoholic beverages in Vegas.

It is the friendliness and the booze that brought Chris Hansen up from Texas for the weekend. 

Hansen, a building coordinator for Texas power plants, didn’t look like much of a businessman in his Hawaiian shorts and white T-shirt. Especially holding the amount of alcohol he had in his hand.

"This is the best place in the world,” Hansen said enthusiastically as he paused to take a drink from his oversized gallon of beer. “If you need to get away for the weekend you can just come here, enjoy the big city and the really nice people. It’s just great.” 

Yes, Vegas is a fun weekend getaway. But if you were thinking about bringing the kids, you may want to reconsider your vacation city.

“Vegas tried the whole ‘family friendly’ approach a couple years back, and it was a flop,” said Trustin Anderson, a resident of Vegas who moved down for graduate school at the Univeristy of Las Vegas Nevada. “Now they’re back to their old ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ motto.”

Hotels like Treasure Island used to have some family-focused shows, but it would seem that the revenue for a family hot spot just wasn’t there for Vegas. Now the shows at Treasure Island focus more on the pirate wenches than anything the kids would be interested in.

Residents of Vegas seem less enthralled with its charms and more bothered by its paradox.

“It’s weird here,” said Cody Schafer, life-long resident of Las Vegas. “People visit here to party, but people move here to be left alone.”

Vegas residents are most likely disenchanted by the city’s slums, which surround most of the strip and most of the actual city. 

North Las Vegas Boulevard is the opposite of shiny and exciting. It is dilapidated and has a “lock the car doors” kind of a feel. It’s seven blocks of shady drive-by chapels and gentlemen’s clubs that hail to the city’s not-so-distant past. 

Crime is also a concern in North Las Vegas. According to cityrating.com, North Las Vegas’s crime rate per capita is 1.29 times higher than the national average in the areas of “All Violent Crime,” which includes “Murder,” “Forcible Rape” and “Aggravated Assault.” Comparably, “All Property Crimes” in the Northern part of the city sit at a meager 1.10 times the national average. 

However, most tourists won’t see that side of Vegas, unless they get wasted and decide to marry the worker from the craps table. People who come to Vegas for the thrills will most likely stay on the glistening strip, gambling all through the night in the windowless casinos.

Gambling is possibly the main reason why people come to Vegas, and is definitely the reason they leave with lighter pockets. According to insidervlv.com, nearly $7 billion were lost in Vegas just in Casinos on the strip in 2007.

So, if you’re feeling lucky and up to the challenge of avoiding the drive-by pornography, Vegas is a viable vacation option.

If you plan on coming, you must absolutely schedule your trip so you arrive at night. It is, after all, the city of lights. Whether you’re driving or flying, the sudden luminescent explosion as you reach your destination is an important part of the Vegas experience.