The simple answer is “Yes.” For multiple reasons.
Walking the Strip and dealing with drunken tourists was always the norm here, and we could laugh it off; they were tourists who did a little too much Vegas. What was not the norm was dealing with people camped out in front of the doors of businesses—having people drop their pants and take a dump on the curb while asking if you have a ten spot they could have.
The crime rate has risen drastically in the last few years since the lockdown compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Looking at the news lately, it’s difficult to know if they are talking about San Fransico or Las Vegas. They have both become Sh*t holes. Of course, it doesn’t help that our new sheriff wants to be more friendly with criminals and less concerned about the rise in crime in general..
Yes, our new sheriff wants to be more accommodating to terrorist groups like the BLM and their supporters. If only they promise to be good and only have peaceful demonstrations!
The California Invasion
I won’t blame it all on California—just the majority of it. We knew the Oakland Raiders fan base was bad when news articles started to appear about California convicts wanting permission to travel to Vegas to attend the games.
I am sure a couple of them could afford a ticket to the NFL’s most expensive stadium, but most wanted to come here for other reasons. And we were right.
The Pandemic scam didn’t hurt either. With California having the country’s most severe lockdown rules, people came here just to walk around without fearing being arrested. (COVID may be legit, but the pandemic was not.)
Once they arrived, they realized, “If I need to work from home, home doesn’t have to be in my $800,000—800 square-foot home in California. It can be here, where the same house sells for $250,000.” FYI: That same home here now sells for $550,000. Thank You Very much!
And worse, many of them escaping California are bringing their politics with them. The utopia they were demanding came with a huge price tag and differed from what they had been promised. Now they want to repeat that mistake here.
Reality Strikes The Strip
The escapees are moving here from California and bringing more than their politics; they are also bringing their problems. Thieves follow the money. As the people with money escape California, the criminals follow.
Their problems are mixed with our issues created by a corrupt governor that took his COVID-related marching orders from California’s despot governor, causing many small businesses to go broke. Many people lost their life savings trying to survive the Pandemic scam.
High rents, fewer jobs, and skyrocketing inflation continue to take their toll on the people of Nevada. They are creating a larger class of homeless people desperately needing and not finding help, so they are turning to crime.
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Other Issues That Make Vegas Unsafe
Before we go any further, I do need to make this statement. As a city of 2.7 million people, we have the same social issues as any other major metropolitan city of our size.
The difference is that those other metropolitan cities don’t have a giant spotlight on them, watching everything that goes on here 24/7. Las Vegas does.
For people who lived here pre-pandemic, we knew that our police force might have its issues, but they often got the bad guys, and the bad guys usually went away for a long time. Not anymore.
The casino resorts used to have some of the best security tools in the public domain. A lot of it was newly declassified military-grade security. But the new leadership at the resorts seems less concerned with having the best in the business. Just what looks good and works without too much expense involved.
Too many soft liberal urbanites have moved here, demanding “social justice.” The idea that murderers and rapists should spend decades in prison is no longer the rule; it’s the exception.
Every day were are reading about criminals doing bad things, getting arrested, and almost as fast as they get arrested, the judge lets them out on little or no bail. Then, they get arrested again for committing the same crime they did yesterday.
Worse yet, hardened criminals are now paroled after serving a fraction of their sentence, much like what has been happening in California for the last two decades.
No Steve Wynn
There, I said it. We see a more dangerous city now because Steve Wynn cashed in his chips, gave the middle finger to the #metoo movement, and left town.
Steve Wynn cared for Las Vegas tourism, not just his properties. So with him in town, we knew all the players. We knew the CEO of MGM; we knew the CEO of Caesars. We knew them because people like Steve Wynn would talk about what they weren’t doing to help make Las Vegas a better place for tourism. So they always needed to defend their actions or lack thereof.
They also worked to keep the streets in front of their properties clean, neat, and orderly. But now, all that is just a line on the expense report that needs to be cut down to save money.
Cutting costs is a CEO’s number one job. The more he cuts the expenses, the higher the stock price and the larger the year-end bonus for the CEO.
On top of that, the CEOs were always in touch with the State legislator. They fought off things that were bad for the Las Vegas tourism market. They ran this town, and we knew that.
We don’t have that anymore. The casino monopoly we have now is just a money-printing machine for a bunch of white men in offices nowhere near the Strip.
They sit in their ivory towers, far from the Strip, wondering what they want to do with their latest bonus or stock dividend. Never once considering how their resorts could make Las vegas a safer place for tourists.
With Steve Wynn (Wynn Resorts), Sheldon Adelson (Venetian Resorts), and Jim Murren (MGM) always fighting for supremacy, we would never think, “how can we stop hurting the feelings of those defecating on our sidewalks and sleeping in front of our doors?” The new people in charge have that mentality.
In Closing
As one who works in the Vegas tourism marketplace, I hate to say this, but between the Covid Pandemic B.S., the California Invasion, a soft-on crime sheriff, and the resort bosses not really caring about what is happening in front of their resorts, Las Vegas is getting to be a more dangerous place to visit, that before the pandemic.
It’s as if all the reasons I try to avoid the sleazy Fremont Street Experience have expanded and made all parts of the Tourist corridor a little more sleazy. I.e., Dangerous.
