Letter: Too much growth is strangling a nice city

Friday, July 25, 1997 | 10:30 a.m.

We didn't expect Las Vegas to remain a small town like Pahrump. We didn't object to a few more casinos being built. We delighted in the excitement of some of the new ones. We stay home on weekends and holidays and give our town to the tourists, but enough is too much. Since we are the suckers who pay the taxes, we would like to have room to drive safely on the streets. We would like to have room in the schools for our children. We would like to be free of worry about guns and knives and dope brought on the school grounds, about pushers who run rampant all over the city and drive-by shootings by gangs who are moving in in droves. We are fed up seeing street people on every corner with signs "Will work for food." Hah! Try to get someone to mow your lawn for $10.

We are sorry for those poor homeless families who come here with false hopes of jobs and homes, but we are tired of paying their way. Unless something is done to curtail the rapid building of houses and casinos and the thousands of people coming in monthly for nonexistent jobs, Las Vegas is in trouble. It is inevitable the houses will stand empty and the casinos will go down as fast as they are going up. They won't make enough money to pay the light bills and "The Little Jewel of the Desert" will lose its sparkle.

Nadine Fifer