WOW.... my brother made the Las Vegas Review Journal ...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

he moved to Vegas about 10 years ago and he now has 3 storess... 2 of them in casinos and another on the strip "Lost Vegas"....

i hate the vegas with a passion and he gets mad at me for not visiting

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jul-29-Fri-2005/weekly/2641338.html

[RubyDuby in GA]

1. I hate Vegas since they turned it into a family vacation destination

Where are the showgirls? Give us back the glory days of the mob! Damnit! At least they knew how to run things........ I mean really, I expect to see friggin' Mickey Mouse taking up residence there any day now.

[ForrestGump]

2. Family Vegas has been ditched

At least in the process of being reversed. The trouble is that these corporations that now own the Strip can't recreate 'Old Vegas.' They're trying to revive the 'Sin City' thing -- trying really hard -- but it's a corporate, glossy beast devoid of what actually made Vegas Vegas...prices, for one, Vegas having gone from being a cheap or almost free stay to being one of the more expensive resort destinations in the US. I doubt they'll ever get it back. The new resorts are simply incredible, but they've gone for class and elegance in a corporate fashion and it's just not the same -- they're amazing places, but they're devoid of character.

Many people who worked here in the '60s through '80s lament the ousting of the Mafia (their more obvious participation and dominance, anyway, because you'd better believe that some of the the same players are involved somewhere along the line in the corporate chains that operate in Vegas). The Mafia types treated both employees and visitors better than do Vegas' new corporate masters. I'm not saying they were good people, doing good things, but in many ways Vegas was a much better place in which to live and work back then. I first visited Vegas at the tail end of the Mafia's era and even I, with my limited exposure to the way Vegas was, miss the free deals and things that were the norm at the time.