There have been many contributing factors why Las Vegas has lost its charm and quaintness. From this article and the next few I will attempt to discuss some of these major factors. For now, I will establish, a list far from being complete, of what I believe are the important elements to discuss fully or some just to touch upon:

1) The Culinary strike of 1984.

2) The introduction of the bill exchanger.

3) The loss of individual casino owners replaced by Corporations.

4) The tip compliance program initiated by the Internal Revenue Service.

5) The Internal Revenue Service W2-G compliance program.

6) The Indian Gaming Act of 1988.

7) The money laundering provisions of Title 31.

8) The digital age.

9) The Corporate philosophy that every department must show a profit.

10) The high cost of individual entertainers and the limited fewer up and coming talent.

11) The destruction of smaller hotel casinos replaced with huge, monstrous entities.

12) Loss of the gaming monopoly and introduction of player cards.

13) The introduction of shopping malls started with Howard Hughes.

14) The Fremont Street canopy, zip line, et al taking away from the neon and history of this historic street.

Let’s take a look at the culinary strike of 1984 and how it changed Las Vegas. Hotel casino employees have always believed they were/are under paid. They read about the gaming profits of the casinos and believe these casinos should share some of the wealth with them. The casinos, on the other hand, want to reduce the number of employees at every chance they get. This is just the nature of business. Reduce employees and you increase the profit.

Without discussing the two positions let’s examine what results were produced for the customers who live here as well as those who come to our town to enjoy what it has to offer.
In one simple conclusion, this two and one half month long strike destroyed and eliminated the hotel casino dinner shows. I don’t consider the Excalibur dinner show where one tears apart a Rock Cornish game hen with their hands as a dinner show.

Who benefited? Well certainly not the culinary union that lost thousands of positions for employees who worked those dinner shows. Maybe the hotel casinos that no longer had to lose money on the lost leader dinner shows. In reality the losers were you and me and the many tourists who come to town and looked forward to enjoying a dinner show and seeing a top named entertainer at a reasonable price.
The current Las Vegas shows are conducted in showrooms that look like an auditorium or movie theater. You purchase your ticket at ticket Tron or some such outlet. You don’t need many culinary workers to take care of the patrons. The customers dress like they are going to a movie theater. The glimmer and glitz is gone. Ladies do not wear evening gowns and men do not wear suits or even sport coats. Opening night is no different than any other night.

For the most part live orchestras have been replaced with prerecorded music. There are no runways and no one cares. The casinos are happy they now have less people to pay and provide benefits for. The Union looks around and asks “what happened?” The customers don’t even realize what they have lost.
We are the losers. The young tourists and locals who never experienced a Las Vegas dinner show will never know what they missed or what helped make Las Vegas the entertainment capital of the world! Furthermore, they don’t care. They are tired of coming to Las Vegas but don’t know why. They know something is missing but can’t quite put their finger on it. There is nothing special to make their trip memorable.

They are encouraged to shop in the many shopping venues built within each of the hotel casinos. Many of them do not gamble and just play poker. In another generation or two the concept of dinner shows will be relegated entirely to the history books. Isn’t change wonderful?
See you next week,
Jim