People visit Las Vegas because it offers every manner of indulgence.
You can gamble pretty much anywhere. The city offers a near-endless amount of casinos with bars and even some restaurants offering video poker just in case you feel like putting some money at risk while grabbing a snack.
The Las Vegas Strip has essentially become one giant temple of excess. In addition to gambling, it offers countless other ways to indulge that most people would rarely consider at home.
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Visitors can also eat 24 hours, 7 days a week. If you want all-you-can-eat sushi at 1 a.m., the Strip offers that. During the more traditional dining hours you can also find everything from celebrity chefs including Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck, Giada De Laurentiis, Robert Irvine, and more.
If you want a slice of cake from "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro at any time of day, most Caesars Entertainment (CZR) -) hotels offer vending machines selling just that. The Strip also offers lower-brow fare for people who want to try fast-food chains that don't operate where they live.
And while the Las Vegas Strip does not offer legal prostitution and smoking cannabis openly is technically not legal, those rules seem loosely enforced at best. Marijuana, of course, is legal to possess, but only legal to smoke in private residences (not hotels) and the oldest profession, while technically illegal, gets advertised on billboards that drive around the city.
it seems like the Las Vegas Strip has no rules, but a new county ordinance proposed by the Clark County commissioners — essentially Las Vegas' governing body — would make something currently legal, no longer allowed on the Las Vegas Strip.
Image source: John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images
The Las Vegas Strip may soon have a new rule
Walking on the Las Vegas Strip, at least the south and central portions dominated by Caesars and MGM Resorts International (MGM) -), has gotten very difficult. It's crowded with both people trying to get places and homeless people, street performers, and people dressed as showgirls, sexy police officers, superheroes, and more trying to get you to buy a picture.
The entire Strip smells like pot (a side effect of the city not having legal consumption lounges, which is in the process of changing), and you also have to dodge people handing out bracelets which may or may not force you into joining a cult. Add in the guys handing out flyers for sketchy businesses, and it's amazing that anyone gets anywhere.
Parts of the Strip have become unwalkable so the city has created pedestrian bridges that connect various sections where it's impossible to walk. During the recent Formula 1 race those bridges were some of the very rare places where you could see the race without paying hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars for a ticket.
That led to people stopping on the bridges, as well as the staircases and escalators which led to them taking pictures of the race and stopping traffic. For people just trying to get from one location to another, it was gridlock and the Clark County Commissioners have proposed a new ordinance that would make stopping in these areas a misdemeanor.
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Las Vegas Strip may force you to keep moving
In the proposed legislation, the commissioners note that the bridges exist in places where pedestrians are not allowed to walk on the actual street.
The pedestrian bridges were designed for the specific purpose of facilitating such crossings at all foreseeable levels of demand which can vary significantly and unpredictably regardless of day or time of day. The parameters for the pedestrian bridge design did not include uses beyond pedestrian traffic crossing from one side to the other side. The parameters included that pedestrians would not stop, stand or congregate other than for incidental and fleeting viewing of the Las Vegas Strip from the pedestrian bridge.
The proposed ordinance also says that stopping on the bridges can lead to "serious safety issues."
"Because pedestrian traffic demand on the bridges varies significantly and unpredictably regardless of day or time of day, it is impossible to know in advance when stopping will result in criminal or otherwise dangerous conditions," the documents reads."...by the time such conditions exist, it would often be too late for law enforcement or other first responders to intervene, mitigate, render aid, rescue, or take other actions necessary as a result of crime and other serious safety issues."
To stop that from happening, the proposed ordinance would make stopping on the bridges and the connecting escalators and staircases a misdemeanor. That may sound like a small fine or a slap on the wrist, but the proposed penalty is severe.
"Any person who violates any of the provisions of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not to exceed six months or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment," the ordinance proposes.
A public hearing will be held on the proposed measure at 10 a.m. on Dec. 5, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
