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City Cast Las Vegas

In light of this weekend’s heavy rainfall, here are a few words about the valley’s storm drain system.

two systems for disposing of excess water

. The sewage system carries sink and toilet water to a treatment plant, where it’s processed before being sent to Lake Mead. Rain and runoff water travels through storm drains and channels directly to the Las Vegas Wash and on to the lake.

Runoff water isn’t treated before it’s dumped back into our main source of drinking water. Therefore, flood control officials say, “The largest source of stormwater pollution in Las Vegas Valley results from everyday activities.” That is, pet waste, pool chemicals, automotive drippings, pesticides, 

. “One quart of motor oil can contaminate over 250,000 gallons of water.” Most of us don’t pour a quart of motor oil into the gutter, of course. On the other hand, oil from driveway leaks gets carried off by rain, and adds up. 

Despite the footage of rampaging floodwaters in Las Vegas during the past weekend’s storms, Las Vegas is generally well-protected from flooding — the result of 

$2 billion in flood-control infrastructure

 installed by the Regional Flood control District over the last 30 years: some 100 water retention basins and more than 600 miles of flood channels.

There are, notoriously, people living in the valley’s extensive storm tunnel system — about 1,500 of them, according to Shine a Light, a nonprofit that helps such people transition out of the tunnels. (And sometimes 

 after torrential rains.) There’s even been a 

There's more than one way excess water gets to Lake Mead.

What You Should Know About Las Vegas Storm Drains

Las Vegas, Explained

With Las Vegas (a) having strong “ninth island” ties to Hawaii, and (b) being no stranger to tragedy, many of us might want to help out in the aftermath of last week’s Lāhainā wildfires in Maui — already 

the most deadly in the country’s history

This list of credible resources was compiled by City Cast editor Adrian Gonzales:

 The fund is operated by The Hawai‘i Community Foundation and distributed to local nonprofits on the ground.

 The hunger relief organization says every dollar donated can provide four meals on the island.

 The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement has pledged to match donations up to $1.5 million.

 Donations help support animal medical costs.

 The organization has set up emergency shelters for Hawaiians who need food and other services. You can also text “REDCROSS” to 90999 to make an immediate $10 donation.

 In addition to these resources, you can attend charity events Sunday at 

They’re a grim reality during natural disasters and a place where they’re most common is the crowdfunding website GoFundMe. The site itself has helpful information on 

 the legitimacy of fundraisers. The Federal Trade Commision also has resources for 

How Las Vegas Can Help Maui Recover From the Wildfire

How Las Vegas Can Help Maui

City Cast Las Vegas co-host Dayvid Figler highlights a way problem gamblers can help casinos help them:

If you’ve been in a casino, or any place where the ding-ding sirens of slot machines fill the air, you’ve probably seen the (mandatory) brochures (“When the Fun Stops”) that contain information about gambling addiction, including a help line.

 by the UNLV International Gaming Institute suggest that a whopping 19.7% of Nevadans who have gambled in the past year have a high risk of developing gambling problems.

Under Nevada law, every gaming licensee that “engages in the issuance of credit, check cashing, or the direct mail marketing of gaming opportunities” 

. Experts suggest it’s the most powerful tool the state has to help at-risk people.

Every casino has to be ready when a person feels they need something extra to help them stop gambling. Generally, the casino cage or security desk is where to ask for a “self-exclusion” contract: an agreement that outlines what behaviors will stop and how long it will last. It can vary widely between properties but includes things like stopping direct advertisements, ending incentives, canceling loyalty cards, precluding cash-checking, cash-advance, and marker privileges — and more severe measures. Some casinos will still allow a self-excluded person to gamble, but presumably this will slow the gambler’s roll.

Some casino groups go as far as allowing a person to 

 if they show up in the casino — even for non-gaming purposes like dining or seeing a show. Under these hard-to-revoke agreements, the patron literally bans themselves from either the individual property or, sometimes, any property owned by the group. If spotted by security or facial-recognition, the self-excluded person could face misdemeanor charges.

render their credit or debit cards inoperable

 in that company’s cash machines in casinos. While the casino itself may be none the wiser, this prevents frequent trips to the ATM on a bender, and may be just enough to control the behaviors that make spiraling or chasing loses an all-too-familiar reality.

 We talk to Brett Abarbanel of UNLV’s International Gaming Institute about 

 — and whether AI is part of the solution. [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]

Here's how to help casinos help you deal with problem gambling.

How to 'Self-Exclude' in a Las Vegas Casino

In simple terms, it is an events venue housed inside a giant spherical screen. It cost $2.3 billion to build, seats nearly 18,000 people, and will host music, film, and sporting events, beginning with a U2 concert on September 29. The venue is located just off the Strip and will be connected to The Venetian Resort via a pedestrian bridge.

Unfortunately not the edible kind, unless you like to eat math. As you might imagine, engineering a giant ball of LEDs requires a lot of mathematical muscle, and 

, almost every equation used to build it circles back to Pi (AKA, the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter). The structure is 366 feet tall, 516 feet wide, and contains 1.2 million LEDs each about the size of a hockey puck. The seats are also equipped with haptic technology, which can vibrate to enhance the images being projected on the massive screen.

When are the ads coming? Looking at anything with a screen these days comes with the reality of being sold some sort of product. While advertising space is not yet available for the Sphere, “we’re not ruling it out,” said MSG Entertainment Corp. CEO James Dolan. Me? I just want to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

What would you want to see at the Sphere?

Share a Sphere Idea

How Does the Sphere Work?

From today’s City Cast Las Vegas episode about tipping, featuring Las Vegas writer Brittany Bronson — a longtime hospitality worker — here are a couple of practical observations:

 “How much time did you spend with this worker, or how much of their time did they have to spend on you? If you're taking up the worker’s time, they're not giving their time to someone else. The more time you take, the more reliant they are on you to make or break their night.”

 “How obnoxious was I? Did I ask for ketchup, and then they come back and I asked for ranch, and then they come back and I asked for honey mustard?”

 “Just because you give a tip to a particular worker doesn't mean that they're getting the entirety of that tip — in most service industry positions I’ve had, I’m sharing my tip in some way.”

 “I think $2-$5 is a good tip for valet.”

 “What's my minimum bet? What am I betting every time? I think that's a good number. I would like to tip this person at least one minimum bet.”

 “It would depend on your room rate, right? I try to leave, like for a weekend, a $10-$20 tip for my housekeeper.”

 “What I think workers are expecting with a comp is that you will be tipping on what the price of the service would have been had it not been a comp.”

Listen to the Whole Episode

Observations from a longtime service worker

What to Know Before Your Tip in Las Vegas

What to Know Before You Tip

⚛️ Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic “Oppenheimer” opens Friday, and for many it may rekindle interest in America’s mid-century atomic era. Most of the film’s action will probably take place in New Mexico, but we all know where the action moved after that: the Nevada Test Site, close enough to Las Vegas that the above-ground blasts became tourist attractions.

Those days are long gone, but you can still catch a wisp of atomic mojo.

, adjacent to UNLV. This facility chronicles the history of the Nevada Test Site, as well as the tentacular pop culture representations of the atomic mindset. The test site itself, now rebranded as the 

, offers free historic bus tours monthly, showing 50 guests such sights as the Frenchman Flat 

, a blast crater, and one of the “doom towns” created so the government could study the bomb’s effects. (Available dates begin January 22, 2024.)

, owner of the city’s first tavern license, was said to be a 

 the distant mushroom clouds and flashes of light. 

, on Main Street, might not date from the nuclear era, but it pays homage to our atom-splitting past with several of its brews, including the 

On Saturday at the Atomic Museum, author Bruce Borgos 

 his new mystery with roots in Nevada’s nuke-testing era. On the nonfiction tip, 

“Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing, A Graphic History”

 (co-authored by UNLV professor Andrew Kirk) explores “the lived history of nuclear testing” in graphic-novel form. Ever wonder what happened to the mannequins that “peopled” those doom towns? So did journalist Glen Meek, who delved into their surprising fate in a fun piece for 

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” opening Friday, might rekindle interest in America’s atomic era. Where to look for it in Las Vegas.

Where to Savor Las Vegas' Atomic Heritage

Where to Savor Las Vegas' Atomic Elements

 for its latest special legislative session, here’s some deep background:

 in which the Legislature meets for a constitutionally specified amount of time: In our case, 

 (🎧). When that’s insufficient — as is the case this year — or when there’s off-year business only a full Legislature can address, 

 convene a session — it takes two-thirds of both houses to do so — so far all of Nevada’s have been called by the governor.

 There have been 33 so far, the first in 1867, to assure payment of interest on the state debt, and the most recent in 2021, primarily for redistricting.

 Typically no more than 20 days — consecutive calendar days, not business days. There have been five 20-day specials. The law allows longer sessions under certain circumstances, and Nevada has seen two: 27 days in 2003 (to consider taxes) and 25 days in 2004 (to impeach a state official). Note: the marathon 2003 session followed a failed session a few weeks earlier — the first special session ever dissolved by the governor in Nevada.

By contrast, it took one day in 1920 for lawmakers to ratify the amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote, and five days in 2016 to, among other things, approve public financing for Allegiant Stadium.

What's a Special Session?

, beginning tomorrow, in rising new Nevada hotspot of, er, McGill? Up near Ely, it’s a 4.5-hour drive from here — not a bad getaway. “Our lineup reflects our love of independent and alternative music,” organizers say. This is the festival’s second year.

 Schellraiser is a rock ’n’ roll twist on the name of some nearby mountains, the Schell Creeks, said to be the state’s longest  range.

 Depends. Heard of Dinosaur Jr.? Asleep at the Wheel? Titus Andronicus? Blitzen Trapper? The Joy Formidable? The Secret Sisters? Not insignificant names. 

. There will also be food vendors, artisan booths, and more.

, whose work is definitely rock-adjacent, will be on hand, as will 

. “I believe I was added to the bill because the Meat Puppets, the original headliner, had a strong connection to SST Records,” Ruland says. That label was the subject of his acclaimed book, last year’s 

“Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records.”

 “I’m ready to talk about all sorts of SST bands, from Black Flag to Blind Idiot God.”

🎸 Say I impulsively go. Where will I stay?

 If you haven’t already made lodging plans, your options are limited — but aren’t yet zero. There are some 

What Is a Schellraiser?

 the chicken or egg prices going through the coop roof? Seems obvious: the rising cost of eggs has led, or 

, to a modest surge of interest in growing your own. It 

like a good deal: In exchange for a few handfuls of chicken feed, you get nonstop free omelets.

I asked Kim Foster about this; she’s an award-winning food writer, 

 on the City Cast Las Vegas podcast — and owner of 22 backyard chickens. Her advice: Don’t bother.

“I spend so much keeping chickens I could go to Whole Foods and buy their most expensive eggs and still come out ahead financially.”

There are obstacles galore. In order to keep chickens, at least in the City of Las Vegas, you have to get the approval of your neighbors. (Foster lives downtown, not in a rural area. “My neighbors are awesome,” she says.) Also, the costs are formidable — you’d need a coop, feed (which isn’t cheap), antibiotics and supplements ... and don’t forget those Vegas summers. “My chickens have a swamp cooler,” Foster says. The birds require constant attention, not all of it enjoyable. As another local farmer notes, 

 get through all that, you can’t defray your costs by selling your backyard eggs; that’s against the law.

So why have *22* of them? “They bring me so much joy," Foster says. "I could have a whole YouTube channel devoted to chickens eating spaghetti, they’re so hilarious.” That is, for the same emotional satisfactions for which you’d own any pet. Plus eggs! Which 

 fresh and “amazing,” Foster says. On the average, she gets eight or nine a day, and gives plenty away. Very cool. “But," she reminds us, "it’s just not a solution” to the shortage.

Should I Raise Chickens for the Free Eggs?

 Lunar New Year is a more universal term for Chinese New Year (since this holiday is recognized in a variety of Asian countries), celebrated by more than a billion people globally every January or February, depending on the Chinese lunar calendar.


 It begins Sunday, and lasts for up to 15 days — depending on which country is celebrating. The holiday is called "Seollal" in Korea, and lasts for three days. It's called "Tết" is Vietnam and officially lasts for three days, but festivities can stretch for a week.

 According to the Chinese zodiac, it’s the Year of the Rabbit — unless you’re Vietnamese, in which case it’s the Year of the Cat, for possible reasons 

. (It’s said that the Year of the Cat is considered such a fortunate sign that the last one, in 2011, saw a baby boom in Vietnam.)

 Most of the resorts will dress up for the occasion — Asian visitors are a vital tourism demo on the Strip — with lanterns, dragon imagery, and other symbols of luck and prosperity. Most have set up festive lion or dragon dances (

). The Bellagio Conservatory has put up a special Lunar New Year floral extravaganza, while the Venetian’s Grand Canal Shoppes has an art installation with “an illuminated smoke-breathing dragon.”


, and the following Sunday, Jan. 28, at 11 a.m. on 