Las Vegas off to good start for ‘02

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2002 | 9:39 a.m.

The new year in Las Vegas got off to a good start, as 280,000 people celebrated without any major problems and many hotel workers who had been laid off after Sept. 11 were called back to work.

A thunderous fireworks display lit up the Strip and a thunderous Mayor Oscar Goodman lit up the crowd at the Fremont Street Experience.

To the cheers of throngs on Fremont Street, who had enjoyed a red, white and blue light show festooned with eagles, Goodman roared, "If I find bin Laden, I'm going to kick his ass."

Seeing a TV reporter who was preparing to interview him live, Goodman made a point of repeating his bold avowal.

"Did I just say that as the mayor? You bet your ass I did."

The crowd, buoyed by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Bangles, loved it. Moments after midnight's fireworks and confetti blasted from cannons, many in the Fremont Street crowd began chanting, "U.S.A., U.S.A. ..."

On the Strip scores of thousands of people brought business back to normal Las Vegas proportions.

Business at Park Place Entertainment Corp.'s five Strip hotels was very strong, said Park Place spokeswoman Debbie Munch -- so strong that hundreds of laid-off workers were called back to help service the crowd over the holiday.

"Our hotels were full, our entertainment was at capacity, and the parties were well attended," Munch said. "We were pleased with the turnout for New Year's Eve. The question that remains is the amount of business volume versus last year."

Munch declined to discuss the business performance of the properties, saying those numbers would be released when Park Place releases its quarterly earnings.

About 1,000 police officers patrolled the Strip Monday night and closed the road to traffic about 9 p.m.

"Throughout the night officers said they noticed that the crowd was more respectful of police and more tolerant of the job we needed to do out there," said Sgt. Chris Darcy, a police spokesman, who was stationed at the Clark County Emergency Operations Center. "It seemed to be a quieter crowd than in years past."

Police made 38 arrests on Las Vegas Boulevard and four arrests at the Fremont Street Experience, a drastic drop from last year's arrest totals of 183 on the Strip and 14 downtown.

"You always have those people who aren't on their best behavior," Darcy said. "We have a lot of tolerance for behavior problems out there, but we don't have any for violence. People throwing bottles or fighting were arrested.

"We didn't have any problems with suspicious packages or anything like that."

Police also handed out about 90 citations, mainly for disorderly conduct, in the resort corridor, Darcy said.

The $500,000 firework show that blasted from 15 locations from the Mandalay Bay to the Stratosphere put a capper on the night and sent many in the crowd scurrying for home.

"It's a slow process to get the people out of there and reopen the street, but it did thin out after the fireworks," Darcy said. "We had started to open the street back up by about 1:30 a.m."

The fireworks were deemed a success by Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority officials.

"People were bowled over by the fireworks, even more than they were last year," Erika Brandvik, spokeswoman for the LVCVA, said. "I was watching the news to see how things were going, and a lot of people were saying this was better than New York and that they were going to make this an annual destination."

The fireworks may have convinced visitors to come back, but traffic on Interstate 15 and crowds at McCarran International Airport today and Tuesday could change their minds.

Officials with the Nevada Highway Patrol said that traffic was likely to stay heavy on I-15 southbound through this afternoon. Southbound lanes were bumper-to-bumper from Tropicana Avenue to the horizon Tuesday afternoon, rendering what would normally be around a 35-minute trip to Primm at the state line a two- to three-hour trip, the highway patrol said.

Bill Keller, a McCarran spokesman, said that the airport was very busy Tuesday morning.

"We had some long lines that took about 30 minutes for people to get through," Keller said. "From the spot checks we've had, it looks like it will be a really big travel day for us. Wednesday and Sunday should also be busy days."

Sun reporters David Strow, Erin Neff and Rebecca Malone contributed to this report.