Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dark side of Vegas light show
Officials fear thousands of revelers at casino-mall event may help spread coronavirus
LAS VEGAS — A New Year’s Eve event at a canopied casino-mall in Las Vegas expected to be attended by at least 14,000 people could be a superspreader event that overruns hospitals, members of Nevada’s coronavirus task force said this week.
Nevada COVID-19 response director Caleb Cage said plans for the Fremont Street Experience’s annual event could hamper the state’s ability to contain the virus amid the surge in hospitalizations.
“It seems an awful lot like the city worked very hard in order to skirt the spirit and the letter of the directives as they are written in order to protect us,” he said.
Since November, Nevada has limited capacity at events to 25% or 50 people to contain the virus.
Cage said the Fremont Street event not only violated the current restrictions, but wouldn’t be allowed under any of the past 10 months’ looser restrictions.
Clark County’s Recovery Organization Enforcement Workgroup, which is made up of health officials, law enforcement and representatives from city governments, denied Fremont Street Experience a permit to host its annual celebration, but the city of Las Vegas issued the venue a special-use permit so it could charge for access and enforce crowd control.
City spokesman David Riggleman said, by issuing a special-use permit, Las Vegas wasn’t sanctioning any event but recognizing that many planned to gather in a public place and attempting to make it as safe as possible.
“People are coming to the Fremont Street Experience and the question for the city was: What was it going to do to prepare for the fact that people were coming?” said Wesley Harper, the executive director of the Nevada League of Cities, who spoke on behalf of Las Vegas. “If they’re going to come, let’s do some things to try and make this as responsible as possible.”
Harper implored officials to view the event as a “protest” that couldn’t be stopped without violating the First Amendment.
He said the $25 cost wasn’t for tickets, but for a “service fee” to subsidize the cost of necessary law enforcement.
Fremont Street Experience’s public relations representative Terri Maruca declined to comment.
According to the outdoor mall’s website, everyone will need to wear a mask at all times and stay 6 feet away from each other.
Unlike past years, Thursday night’s event will not include street performers or live music.
But guests will be able to watch a light show, see the Slotzilla Zoomline and walk the corridor’s six blocks. Guests of Fremont Street hotels will also be allowed on the premises for festivities.
Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick said she worried it would be hospitals and their staff, rather than New Year’s Eve street party-goers, who will pay the price for the event.
Las Vegas Metropolitan police Deputy Chief Kelly McMahill said officers will not enforce Nevada’s mask mandate or social distancing requirement on New Year’s Eve, but they plan to ask pedestrians to comply.
“We welcome you to have a good time, but we also don’t want to send ourselves back months in this pandemic where we have more and more people going to the hospital and we’re closing down the city,” McMahill said.