Outdoor bars on the rise at Fremont Street Experience

By Liz Benston

Friday, July 18, 2003 | 11:32 a.m.

The Fremont Street Experience lightshow and pedestrian mall in downtown Las Vegas expects to book more than twice the number of live entertainment venues this year compared to last.

In anticipation of bigger pedestrian crowds and in hopes of attracting additional business, several casinos also will begin rolling out larger portable bars this summer.

All of the 10 casinos that are members of the Fremont Street Experience have permission from the city to operate small portable bars that serve alcohol.

Last month, three downtown casinos -- the Golden Gate, Fitzgeralds and the Four Queens -- received variances from the Clark County District Board of Health to operate the larger bars. Other casinos are expected to follow suit, said Mark Paris, president and chief executive of Fremont Street Experience LLC.

The bars have been a sporadic presence at the attraction since it opened to the public in December 1995, Paris said.

With more entertainment on the horizon, the bars have become a more permanent presence downtown, he said.

The variances will allow the bars to operate more like permanent street vendors, with extra compartments to store beverages, glasses and other necessities as well as wash stations for servers.

Larger bars mean fewer trips back into the casino to clean and restock and more time serving customers, casinos say.

The bars have become an important -- and lucrative -- part of the downtown entertainment experience, they add.

"It adds a bit to the ambience," said Gene Sagas, director of facilities and entertainment at Fitzgeralds hotel and casino. "You can get a cocktail without going into the casino."

That's key for the many visitors who aren't necessarily visiting downtown to gamble or go into a casino, Sagas said.

"They come down to see the lightshow, they see a couple of vendors, they see the entertainment," he said.

The new bar carts will look more like real, full-service bars rather than "a banquet table with a table cloth over it," he said.

Portable bars create an atmosphere that is something like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, said Ken Johnson, director of food and beverage for the Four Queens hotel and casino.

"It makes it fun for (customers)," Johnson said. "We want to go out there and promote downtown."

The Four Queens, like its neighbors, will increase the number of nights the bars operate to accommodate visitors during times when bands are playing outside, he said.

"We're out there to provide a real street (vendor) experience," added Golden Gate President Mark Brandenburg.

"The whole point is that hey, it's hot out there and it makes a lot of sense to be providing lots of cold drinks to our customers, the local visitors and the tourists who visit the Fremont Street Experience," Brandenburg said.

City officials don't appear perturbed about the prospect of more alcohol flowing under the Fremont Street Experience canopy.

Neither Metro Police nor the city's business licensing department has received complaints about public drunkenness or other potential problems linked to the bars, officials say.

Even the Golden Nugget -- downtown's premier upscale casino and a property that tends to roll out bars only for special occasions -- doesn't have a problem with any of the bars downtown.

"To our knowledge there haven't been any problems," MGM MIRAGE spokesman Alan Feldman said.

Under an agreement struck with the Fremont Street Experience when the organization was formed, casinos near the mall are allowed to operate portable bars as an extension of their liquor licenses. No further restrictions were placed on the operations beyond rules that apply to other liquor license holders.

The health district isn't involved in the liquor licensing process. The bars needed health district approval for health code reasons.

The best example of successfully enforcing liquor laws has occurred during New Year's Eve, which attracts tens of thousands of people downtown, said Jim DiFiore, business services manager for the city of Las Vegas.

Three years ago city officials and police were especially concerned about policing downtown in the wake of a law that prohibited people from consuming alcohol near convenience stores, DiFiore said.

"Each year the problems have been reduced to a point where, you could say that this last New Year's Eve, we had very few problems with intoxication and people disturbing the peace," he said. "The success of that comes from the participants in the Fremont Street Experience and the people serving the alcohol."

Outside of special events, the regular presence of bars at the mall hasn't prompted complaints or problems that have reached city officials, he added.

Complaints stemming from the bars could result in the casinos losing their liquor licenses, Metro spokesman Officer Jose Montoya said.

"If it gets to be a problem and we have officers responding to numerous calls, people getting intoxicated, we would approach the city council to let them know why it's a problem, that the portable bars are directly linked to the problem and that it's not a good image for the city," Montoya said.

Like other businesses that operate bars, portable bar operators are required to abide by rules that prevent selling liquor to minors or people who are intoxicated, he said. Operators must also check IDs of people who might be underage.

The outdoor pedestrian mall is equipped with permanent stages on Second and Fourth streets as well as portable stages that host regular live performances. The mall already has booked about 250 days of live entertainment so far this year compared to about 110 days last year.

Starting in March, the Fremont Street Experience began offering live entertainment at least five nights a week, Paris said.

The entertainment typically runs from Tuesday through Saturday, excluding Sundays and Mondays.

At least one casino would like to increase that number.

Once its larger bars are up and running, Fitzgeralds expects to begin booking entertainment on Sundays and Mondays until the Fremont Street Experience organization can begin to pay for the events itself, Sagas said.

That way, he said, visitors will be assured of hearing some live music whenever they come downtown.

The full-scale bars themselves won't come cheap. Fitzgeralds expects to pay up to $15,000 for the bars, which will average about $12,000 each for all operators, Sagas said. The price is worth the profits, he said.

While the estimated number of visitors downtown has declined in recent years, the outdoor mall is responsible for drawing people downtown amid increased competition from the Strip and has become a primary reason why people choose to visit downtown, Paris said. The mall also is seeing increased traffic as well as more interest from casinos in participating in events such as opening portable bars, he said.