The Las Vegas Strip is a 4.2 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard that runs from Russell Road to Sahara Avenue. The big names of MGM and Caesar’s properties line the streets, supported by restaurants and other small business and tourist traps designed, in part, to separate people from their hard earned money.
The Las Vegas Strip, despite its name, is not technically in Las Vegas. The Strip is actually located in Clark County in the unincorporated towns of Winchester and Paradise. Therefore, it lies outside the city limits of Las Vegas.
So when Carolyn Goodman, Mayor of Las Vegas, goes on national TV and causes Anderson Cooper to react the way he did above, well, know that little bit of information first.
Full interview available here
A formal stay-at-home order for Nevada did not come from Governor Steve Sisolak until April 1. The lights on the Strip and our local casinos started to shut off about two weeks prior to that. I myself found myself shifting to work from home on St. Patrick’s Day.
Even as a hardcore introvert, it has kind of sucked. Not going to lie. It has been difficult and is stressful. But then you have to remember that it’s really not about you necessarily. It’s about acknowledging that you are staying at home for your elderly neighbor. For the kid who has a rare autoimmune disease. For your co-worker who may be going through chemotherapy. For your aunt who has lupus.
You are staying at home because, believe it or not, you are part of a fucking society that needs us all to pull together, get over our selfish tendencies, and do our best to mitigate things in the short term so that our medical system can focus on doing their best to treat the folks who are actively sick.
You’re staying home because for all you know, you could be an asymptomatic carrier and it’s better for you to stay home for a while. You don’t need to be wandering around the mall or the Planet Hollywood Casino like it’s just a regular day.
After all, Typhoid Mary was asymptomatic. But she knew she was a carrier and kept cooking for families and killing them. Is that what we really want to deal with?
Of course, there are realistic concerns about the economy. Not going to lie, this has sucked tremendously. It has also exposed just how tenuous and, well, probably unsustainable some business practices are/have been. An optimistic me would hope that we are learning from this experience and will rethink things to reshape our economy moving forward in 2020 and beyond.
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Sigh. Fine. You’re right. Moving on.
Let me return to Mayor Goodman, though. Because the idea that residents of Las Vegas would voluntarily be willing to serve as a “control group” is ludicrous on its face and deeply sociopathic if she was not being hyperbolic.
Let’s assume that the casinos of Fremont Street were reopened in say, a week and the staff was able to return. Given that we are nowhere near testing enough people as a country, why would you willing put people in harm’s way? You are supposed to be the mayor of the people who live and work in your city — not the mayor of the casinos.
I get that you, Mayor Goodman, are term limited and therefore you face no potential ballot blowback for your words. But you are embarrassing the rest of the valley with your continued words of complaint about this. Is it painful right now? Yes. Should we be concerned about the dip in tax revenue? Of course. I’m terrified right now because I know furloughs are coming for me and my colleagues.
But I also know that we have people in place in leadership who are trying to do right by the thousands of working class people in this state and in this valley. And the priority right now needs to be ensuring that the curve is flattened, stays flattened, and then we can go about reopening.
Look, here’s the deal: Because we are an international destination, I believe that there is a chance that we could get hit again and have to shut down again. Most of us here in Nevada have done what we were supposed to do and stayed home.
But our future travelers aren’t only from states like Washington and California and Ohio. We’ll have people from Georgia and Florida and other places that did not adhere to shelter-in-place. That is the danger of trying to turn us into a petri dish; all of the work we have done over the last six weeks could be undone like that.
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It’s irresponsible leadership, plain and simple. And shows a callous disregard for many of the people who make this city run, plain and simple. It is absolutely disgraceful and tone-deaf.
Test For Echo 
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