By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Amid national racial inequality protests across the country, the Las Vegas Strip and some of its high-profile hotel-casinos like Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Wynn, New York-New York and Cosmopolitan are sanitizing chips, setting up plexiglass shields and setting up washing/sanitizer stations on the eve of re-opening Las Vegas’ storied tourism industry.
As protesters staged a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in downtown near Las Vegas City Hall, the Strip was quiet around 7 p.m. as only a handful of motorists drove north and south along the three-mile-long world-famous tourism and gambling corridor. Only 30 minutes earlier at around 6:30 p.m., an earthquake with an epicenter in California 123 miles away was felt in Las Vegas.
Some of the sportbooks will be returning, too. Though, the sportsbooks did have apps that sports gamblers could have been using even before the casinos re-open Thursday. Circa, for example, is ready to re-open sportsbooks in the The D Las Vegas and Golden Gate in downtown.
LVSportsBiz.com cruised the Strip on the eve of the Thursday re-opening and it was likely the last time the wide boulevard will be so quiet. After the coronavirus pandemic shut down Nevada’s vaunted tourism and hospitality industry, many bicyclists took to the Strip to pedal the famed road.
Then after a 46-year-old black man was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day setting off a nationwide firestorm of protests, Las Vegas Boulevard became a corridor of marches and demonstrations in memory of George Floyd. Tonight, protests triggered by the killing of Floyd re-ignited on the Strip after protests were held in downtown four miles to the north.
Now, MGM Resorts International, the biggest hotel-casino property owner on the Strip, is poised to re-open several properties such as the Bellagio. There are also markers posted on the sidewalk in front of the famous Bellagio fountains advising visitors to give a six-foot berth between each other as the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, claiming the lives of more than 105,000 Americans.
While the Strip prepares to spring to life Thursday, work continues on the $1.97 billion Raiders stadium project off the Strip on the west side of Interstate 15 across from Mandalay Bay. The Raiders say the domed, 65,000-seat stadium is still on schedule to be ready July 31.
A new traffic signal is also being prepared at the Polaris Avenue-Hacienda Avenue corner. Many local fans will be coming from that Polaris-Hacienda direction, while many tourists will be getting to the stadium from the opposite direction.
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter and Instagram. Like LVSportsBiz.com on Facebook.