Columnist Susan Snyder: This Stuff is quite sobering

Friday, July 6, 2001 | 5 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder @lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Las Vegas has earned another first.

The July issue of Stuff, a magazine for men 18 to 25 years old, includes a list of the best cities in which to find the staples of the post-adolescent male's life.

And, of course, Las Vegas made the list. But it's not because we're the best city for speeding (Wendover, Utah), or for live music (Raleigh-Durham, N.C.) or for having no skills (Columbia, Mo.) or for naked women (Montreal).

Las Vegas lured the dubious honor of being Stuff's "best city for drunks."

Bully for us.

Now, at first reading -- and believe me, there are no big words -- the whole concept is kind of funny.

After all, every year Money and other magazines publish best-cities lists based on job growth, housing prices and other quality-of-life issues. Why not a list for the snout-nosed members of society?

Stuff's list says New Orleans is best for fat lazy guys because statistics show almost 40 percent of residents are obese. Chicago is the best place to find a one-night stand and Amarillo, Texas, is the best town for meat. Beef, specifically.

Las Vegas, it says, is a great place to get drunk because it "has no last call," and "the drinks in the casinos are complimentary for players. The casinos want you to get drunk and lose big."

Oh, don't call if you work in a casino, own a casino or play in a casino. I didn't write it.

This is supposed to be funny, but it's just not. Maybe it's because the men I know aren't anywhere close to 25. Or maybe I never really cared much for their interests when they were.

Maybe as a chick I just don't get it. Or maybe, just maybe, I do.

"I have two friends who have been injured recently in accidents. And both times the other driver who caused the accident was drunk," said the clerk at the Henderson Barnes & Noble Booksellers where I bought Stuff.

The man looked to be in his late 20s or early 30s. You'd think he would get it.

But he only sighed when I explained why I was buying Stuff. (Hey, there's a huge photo of a scantily clad brunette on the cover with the screaming headline "Survivor's Amber casts away her clothes!")

"The drivers got away with nothing more than what I consider a slap on the wrist. It was terrible," he said.

According to federal highway statistics, alcohol-related car crashes killed 156 people in Nevada in 1999. That was 45 percent of all the people killed in crashes that year. And Nevada ranked fifth nationally in the percentage of alcohol-related traffic fatalities.

Woo-hoo. Give us a medal.

A bill that would have lowered Nevada's blood-alcohol level for legal intoxication from .10 to .08 failed in an Assembly committee this past session. Evidently, a lot of lawmakers don't get it either.

Now, I've carved a living out of making fun of Las Vegas. I like a good laugh. But according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, more Americans have died in alcohol-related crashes than in all the wars in which the United States has been involved since it was founded.

And we're the best town for drunks in the whole nation?

That's supposed to be funny. But I just don't get it.