The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Lose your shirt – but please wear a mask
Robert Jackman visits Las Vegas to find out how Covid rules have changed the traditional Sin City experience
How many places in America let you smoke inside? A quick Google search suggests (surprisingly) that a dozen or so hold-outs still exist. That said, I’d be willing to venture there is only one place where smokers are required to use a face mask while indulging in their habit. And that place is a Las Vegas casino.
At first, I had assumed this baffling health and safety clash must be a joke. But sure enough, the sign in Caesars Palace informing patrons that they could only remove their mask when actively eating, drinking or smoking was official. What’s more, it said, the should be pulled back up “after bite, sip or puff ”.
Of all the US destinations least suited to long-term pandemic restrictions, Las Vegas was always going to be near the top of the list. For more than a century now, this has been the place where hard-working Americans (and latterly international visitors) come to escape the grind and irritation of daily life. On the mighty Strip – the unofficial name for the famous four-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard – the biggest casinos have proudly defied nature itself by exerting control over temperature and masking the time of day. Now they find themselves back at its mercy.
How has Covid affected Las Vegas? In the early days of the pandemic, the city came seriously unstuck. Leaving the airport, my driver tells me that when Nevada first ordered businesses to close, the veteran casino operators found they had no idea how to actually do this: most had been proudly running a 24/7, 365-day operation since the day the casinos were built and hadn’t read the lock-up procedures for years.
As you might expect, the biggest impact of the pandemic has been the ubiquitous face mask. Despite state guidelines leaving a sliver of discretion for businesses, masks are compulsory virtually everywhere. Presumably keen to appear socially responsible, casinos seem to have doubled down on official guidance – even if their guests tend to opt for the cheap surgical variety now actively discouraged by omicron hardliners. Masks are even required in the smaller poker rooms, where the chance to cover one’s face presumably brings a new twist to the great art of bluffing.
Apart from that, it’s business as usual in Sin City as bars and venues trip over themselves to make up for lost trade. Irritating perspex screens and capacity limits are thankfully absent. Instead the bigger casinos compete on their cleaning policies, seeking to reassure guests by advertising how often they sanitise their chips. While the Strip has returned to action, the biggest crowds can be found at its downtown rival, Fremont Street. Even in early January, it is busmask
The chance to cover one’s face presumably brings a new twist to the great art of bluffing
tling with domestic visitors seeking refuge from the biting cold of the northern and eastern states.
As is often the case in here, the real challenge is finding the right places to go. In a city where tourist traps and mediocre eateries are everywhere, chancing it has never been an option. From listening to the Mobbed Up podcast – a chronicle of the rise and fall of organised crime in Vegas produced by the city’s Mob Museum and a Nevada newspaper – I find out about the Peppermill: a decades-old restaurant at the far north of the Strip, accurately described as one of the last vestiges of “old Vegas”. It’s definitely worth a visit.
By far the best tip, though, comes from Nate Silver, the nerdy American pollster who regularly competes in poker tournaments here. On his own podcast, he plugs Tacos el Gordo – a fantastic budget eatery where you can arrive with $20 (£15) and leave with an excellent meal and a wad of change.
As for options for hardcore mask refuseniks, I’m able to find two. One is the Laundry Room, a rather pricey speakeasy-style bar that has prioritised authentic period ambience over modern pandemic concerns. The other is the infamous Heart Attack Grill, a provocative novelty restaurant that gleefully promotes gluttony. Given its long-standing crusade against health and safety, it was inevitable it would defy the guidance on mask wearing.
As for casinos, my favourite remains El Cortez: a charmingly ramshackle place whose ambience resembles something between a heist movie and that Arctic Monkeys video set in a casino on the moon. This place hasn’t changed for years and isn’t going to start now. Being off the Strip, it is also refreshingly hassle-free to deal with: no long check-in queues or extortionate mini-bar prices to worry about – the perfect respite from an increasingly officious world.
On the casino floor, I put the mask policy to the test. Having obtained a smoke from a kindly bystander, I park myself at a blackjack table holding the (unlit) cigarette between my fingers. The dealer intervenes almost immediately. “Sir, if you’re not going to light that, you’ll need to put on your mask,” he says. As a non-smoker, I’d never normally contemplate reaching for a match, but here we are. Let’s just hope what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.