Thursday, February 27, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

Cafe Espresso to close

Cafe Espresso Roma--the longtime haven for poets, goth kids, rumpled UNLV students and profs--will close at the end of this month. According to Espresso employees, owner Sandy Boyd--who began the chain in Berkeley, Calif., in the '80s--has decided not to re-sign his lease, and is giving up after years of trying to make the place turn a decent profit. A group of Cafe Espresso employees was hoping to buy the business off Boyd, but recently decided against it, since the costs of bringing the coffee shop up to current building codes is way out of their price range.

"He'd sell us the place for $10,000," says an employee. "But it would cost at least $100,000 to bring the place up to code."

Perhaps more important is the cultural price tag. In a town with an ever-sputtering arts and lit scene, Cafe Espresso proved to be a constant, hosting poetry readings, art shows and live music. Since its opening in 1988, the coffee shop weathered many a competitor; its closing proves that even Vegas' so-called cultural mainstays are vulnerable. Please, God, don't turn it into a Starbucks.--AK

State of mind

Funny, folks over in east California--on the far west edge of the Great Basin--are known to grumble that they'd like to secede to Nevada. It's as if, when the invisible wall was thrown up, they were caught on the California side while rounding up strays. And in a relict anti-government and everything goes way, they still pine for what's called Nevada. Lovely, tax-lax Nevada. So, imagine their consternation at hearing of Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed $1 billion tax increase plan. Sorta kills the romance of secession. And, oh, envisage their surprise at Republican Assemblyman Ron Knecht's recent fake bill that would have had the state renamed East California to reflect (and protest) the governor's plan. Caught in the middle of this identity crisis, perhaps eastern Californians and the Knechtian Nevadans should join up and form their own new state.--HW

Nevada's new friend

Nevada's fight to prevent the federal government from dumping high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, gained an influential supporter this month. Rodney Ewing, a geologist at the University of Michigan, is profiled in the March issue of Scientific American. Ewing, who supports nuclear power and the concept of geologic waste disposal, nonetheless has serious doubts about whether his fellow scientists have done enough good research at Yucca Mountain. Despite billions of dollars' worth of studies, "our knowledge is actually quite thin," says Ewing, who sits on the National Academy of Sciences board on radioactive waste management.

Ewing's chief complaint echoes that of the state of Nevada in its legal actions: that the rules have changed to fit the site. Originally, the argument for underground disposal was that favorable geology--essentially dry, hard rock--would do most of the work in keeping the nuclear waste out of the environment. But in recent years, amid concerns that Yucca Mountain is wetter and more porous than previously thought, this philosophy was abandoned in favor of "engineered barriers," meaning that man-made metal canisters, subject to corrosion over time, would have to do most of the job of holding the waste. "Instead of devising a regulation and finding a site that meets it," Ewing tells Scientific American, "we picked a site and made a regulation for it." An untested metal, Alloy 22, is supposed to confine the wastes for 10,000 years, but Ewing isn't convinced: "We're betting on a new material about which we know little, while making optimistic assumptions about its behavior under conditions we can only guess at."

Ewing has a book about Yucca Mountain coming out next year.--GS

Remember nuclear testing?

News reports are coming fast and furious that President Bush and other GOP leaders are intent on preparing the Nevada Test Site to resume nuclear testing. The Guardian newspaper in London reported last week on a leaked Pentagon document discussing plans for a secret meeting in August involving senior military officials and nuclear scientists to decide whether to resume testing in anticipation of the development of new nuclear weapons.

The administration wants to overhaul the U.S. nuclear arsenal in response to changing international conditions. For example, it advocates creation of earth-penetrating weapons dubbed "bunker busters" to destroy chemical and biological weapons stored underground. It also suggests development of "mini-nukes," low-yield warheads for more targeted attacks than, say, the annihilation of an entire city. Meantime, House Republicans issued a report last week calling for expanding nuclear weapons research and accelerating preparation of test site readiness.

Nevada political leaders have ranged from vaguely skeptical to generally supportive of the proposal to resume testing. Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Jon Porter, both Republicans, say they would support the president if he believes testing should resume. On the Democratic side, Sen. Harry Reid hasn't said anything and Rep. Shelley Berkley doesn't think resuming full-scale testing is necessary. In other words, unlike Nevada's united and spirited opposition to dumping the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, the state is divided and reserved regarding the prospect of nuclear explosions next door to Yucca Mountain.--GS

Harrah's same old song-and-dance

March is Women's History Month, and what could be more ironic than a keynote speech (March 7 at the Clark County Library) honoring the occasion by Harrah's executive Jan Jones?

Perhaps Jones, a former mayor of Las Vegas, will talk about how she rose above the traditional role of women in Nevada's gambling halls--bed-making and man-luring--to a position in which she could ensure that other women employees beneath her retain that old flavor of objectification. Maybe she'll give examples:

There's Darlene Jesperson, who bartended at Harrah's Reno for 21 years, serving happy regulars and getting positive reviews, until one day she was fired for refusing to wear makeup, as required of female beverage servers by a new policy.

There are all those cocktail servers who've fought for the right to wear low-heeled shoes, like their male counterparts, instead of body-crippling stilts.

There's Rosemary Florez, a former Harrah's Las Vegas cocktail waitress who claims a chemical spill on the job three years ago destroyed her and other employees' health.

And now there's Harrah's new "BevErtainment" service, debuting in three months at the Rio, which will replace that old workhorse, the thong-clad cocktail server.

That's right--apparently, butt cheeks and bourbon-on-the-rocks aren't enough to slake the thirst of parched gamblers anymore. Soon the servers will have to sing and dance, too, in choreographed routines. Rio Senior Vice President and General Manager Tom Jenkin says the company will help servers make a "smooth transition to another position within the Rio and Harrah's Las Vegas if they are not interested in auditioning for the 80 new positions."

Tom Stoneburner, director of the Reno-based Alliance for Worker Rights, says a number of Rio cocktail servers have contacted the Alliance since the new service was announced. They're concerned they won't be offered replacement positions as lucrative as their $75,000-plus (wages, benefits and tips) cocktail server jobs.

"There's a moral obligation on the part of an employer to treat fairly its long-term employees, and not to just arbitrarily change the whole job description in such a radical way," says Stoneburner, who works in the casino industry. He adds: "I think I'm starting to see a pattern here. I just can't help but feel we have a management that is bent on exploiting women."

But, then again, Jones might not have time to get into all that in her keynote speech.--HW

Gov't

Walters wins again

Billy Walters may have an evil image to some, but few would deny he's a clever businessman. Walter's latest wizardry deals with his contentious 300-acre golf course-shopping center-office complex project located southeast of Warm Springs and Durango roads, across from Rhodes Ranch. According to a county planning department source, after the barbs had been thrown, the lines redrawn and the dust settled, Walters ended up with exactly what he wanted: 40 acres dedicated to highly profitable commercial-office use.

"What he got is what he wanted in the first place," the planning source said. "The 40 acres along Warm Springs going commercial."

At the height of the controversy, Walters sought 20 acres of office zoning and 40 acres of commercial zoning, which would have included a child care center. As it turned out, Walters got 15 acres of office and 25 acres of commercial zoning, minus the child care center--all fronting Warm Springs Road.

Project opponents might have come away from the recent County Commission meeting thinking the controversy had a win-win ending, but not really. Going into the fray, Walters already knew his side had won because he only needed--and was willing to accept--the compromised size.--FC

Brown's loss

Darcy Hayes, a key staffer in Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown's office, packed up her belongings and moved down the 10th floor hall this week to become part of Mayor Oscar Goodman's "entourage."

Hayes, who'd been with the Ward 4 councilman for the past three years, said in typical "mobspeak" at the mayor's re-election kickoff party last week, "They made me an offer," but she left off the part about "I couldn't refuse."

She didn't mention any particulars about the position--salary, duties or hours--other than that her desk would be out in the mayor's lobby.

Hayes has been with the city for 10 years, starting out for three years as a receptionist, then four years in public information, and the last three years working for Brown.

Her departure marks the second loss for Brown in as many years. In 2001, former Brown aide Patrick Smith was promoted to a key advisory slot in the city manager's office.--FC