VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/118468
the basics Pick 'Em Get smart Power tweets Overheard Power Lunch The Numbers Sin City Media Chatter We hear Buy high Sell low VEGASINCmag Executive class Read this! The Pitch is back Vegas then VEGASinc2021 American dream talking points Done Deal Moonlighting the numbers Smith's world .com YOUR AD HERE Mike Smith is an award-winning editorial cartoonist featured daily in the Las Vegas Sun. Smith's work also is distributed nationally by King Features Syndicate. See archives of his work at lasvegassun.com/smithsworld. NOW SERVING LAS VEGAS ? ? ? ? $ ? ! The innovator 95 Gate keeper FortuneCookie Grilled The Survivor 98 stephen r. sylvanie The number of Culinary Union members arrested during a protest March 20 on the Strip. The group blocked traffic for an hour by sitting in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard. The Culinary wanted to call attention to almost two years of stalled contract negotiations between Deutsche Bank, owner of the Cosmopolitan, and some 2,000 resort workers. $14 The cost of the South Point's new resort fee, which went into effect March 1. The fee — $12.50 plus tax — provides guests with in-room Wi-Fi, access to a fitness center, boarding pass printing and airport shuttle rides. 60 The number of minutes the Strip went dark March 23 in observance of Earth Hour. Casinos dimmed their lights from 8:30-9:30 p.m. to send a message about climate change and the importance of energy conservation. $100 The amount former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman bet on UNLV to win the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately for Goodman, UNLV was eliminated in the second round, losing 64-62 to Cal. 140 The number of years the cognac "Perfection" has been aged. Made by Hardy, it is considered the world's oldest unblended cognac. A glass at the new Cognac Lounge at Restaurant Guy Savoy inside Caesars Palace costs $600. Producers made only 1,200 bottles. $14 million The amount Tony Hsieh's Downtown Project paid for the Western Hotel, a shuttered casino on Fremont Street. The acquisition is the latest in Hsieh's downtown revitalization campaign. 20 20130401_VI20_F.indd 20 Reader comments We want to hear from you. Visit vegasinc.com to post your opinion. On Ed Komenda's March 20 vegasinc.com story about members of the Culinary Union staging a protest in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard ("Nearly 100 union backers arrested in protest of Cosmopolitan"): Las Vegas is a union town. The unions were great, back when employees were really getting mistreated. Unions are now obsolete. The unions are making people lazy. Restaurants all over the country hire workers that are not union, and they are doing just fine. We hear all the time about the Wal-Mart workers complaining they want to be a union. Why? Need a job? They gave you a job. Want a better job? Go out and get it. Do what it takes to get it. Don't lean on the union to do it for you. — Matthew Evans (MatthewEvans1) I was a member of a union back in the early 1980s, when I was in high school. Pay was pretty good for not having to have any skills. The job had benefits, but I didn't need them. But the thing that I hated about the union was that those jobs attracted a subset of the population who were bitter and lazy. And when it came time for someone to get a better gig or better hours, it was always the laziest and most bitter worker with seniority who got it. — BuskinTederodemowitz The unions are necessary now more than ever. Employers are firing people at will, giving employ- ees 30 hours and less a week just to stay under the new health care law soon to take effect. No raises for years. One person does the job of three. Paltry entry-level wages just barely above minimum wage, and the list goes on and on. Employees should not be made to feel that they to have work like dying horses just to save their job, and the choice being to quit if they can't take the heat. — JosephTunstall Unions help secure a livable wage. If you work for a company, they should pay you enough that you can survive and thrive, not barely make it by. Especially when they afford to pay their employees a bit more. — Richie Villafuerte (RichieVillafuerte) On Eli Segall's March 21 vegasinc.com story about a real estate report that characterized the rise in Las Vegas land prices as unsustainable ("Report: Las Vegas land prices rising at 'downright scary' pace"): A sure sign that the tide is changing was signaled by the Genting brand buying up the Echelon property. They buy up the Echelon from Boyd at a good price for both parties before the prices rise again. The sheer presence of Genting will affect the value of other land because the Resorts World project can single-handedly provide tens of thousands of new jobs and inject billions of dollars into the local economy. Vegas will see a steady comeback now over the course of the next two years. — KyleStrauss | 1 APRIL 2013 | 3/28/13 2:59:26 PM