Ice, ice baby: It’s time to be a hockey fan. Here’s how.
10 October
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Bottoms up! T h e f i g h t e r at r e s t Harry Reid is retiring. We ponder highlights, lowlights and sick burns from his storied career
our favorite spots to enjoy great beer, fine wine and Quality spirits
Innocence mission The brave activists saving juveniles from sex trafficking face obstacles of their own
Plus F o o d o n c o n v e yo r b e lt s , v i l l a i n -wo r t h y c i g a r s , h o o c h m a d e i n H e n d o, a n d v e ry fa st c a r s
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“All children learn in different ways at different rates, and technology meets children where they are. In Early Childhood, technology generates an excitement about learning, keeps children engaged and brings a new level of interactivity to the classroom.”
“Technology isn’t just about what you can do with a computer. In our Lower School science classes, we teach our students that technology is anything that is created to help solve a problem.” – Herma DeRidder, Science Faculty
“Teaching students computer programming and coding is teaching them skills for life. More than that, with our comprehensive access to technology at all grade levels, our students are creating and using technology to become current-century learners.” – Roxanne Stansbury, Director of Education
—Maria Stoehr, Early Childhood Faculty
“Engineering & Design students use the West Point Bridge Designer software program to kick off the Structural and Civil Engineering unit. This program allows students to plan, design and test virtual bridges before building the actual model. This unit challenges students to think critically about designing structures at minimum cost, while maintaining maximum safety.” – Jennifer Rosebeck, Science and Engineering Faculty
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“In Robotics class our students use Lego® Mindstorms® NXT to build and program robots. Sometimes, my students get frustrated because I won’t give them the answer to a problem they’re having. But this is what makes for a terrific learning experience: constantly improvising, failing, rebuilding, and trying all over again.” —Lee Howard, Science and Robotics Faculty
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EDiTOR’S Note
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we’ll drink to that
Y
ou know, living in a white-hot international supernova disco ball of hedonism and spectacle has its perks. Take alcohol, for instance. Our city boasts an utterly hypertrophic beverage-industrial complex that plies millions of visitors annually with everything from light beer to luxe cocktails, whiskey shots to whaaat’s-that-price-again? wine. And the magical plumbing spreading that liquid around is one reason why Vegas has grown up to be such a great drinking town off the Strip as well. Another reason: a wave of spirited (pun emphatically intended) entrepreneurs who’ve sensed in recent years that a maturing Southern Nevada wants to kick back with something more than six-pack swill, and who’ve established breweries, bars and other businesses to satisfy our increasingly sophisticated palates. The Artisan Booze District in Henderson is a buzzworthy (pun emphatically intended again) case in point, a burgeoning complex of independently owned craft beer brewers, winemakers and distillers. Some of their inspiring origin stories sound like tall tales spun late-night at the bar — such as that of Las Vegas Distillery proprietor and Artisan Booze District founder George Racz (p. 16). He not only took a gamble on Southern Nevada by moving here, sight unseen, to launch a distillery that would produce homegrown whiskey worthy of a city with a serious party rep; Racz doubled down by working to update state liquor laws to encourage the growth of a new cottage industry. The Las Vegas Distillery is just one such success story built upon the valley’s developing appreciation of good beer, fine wine and quality spirits. Other family businesses, from the venerable Ferraro’s in the Next University District to Downtown MOnth upstart Velveteen Rabbit, have Celebrate the season — and do some good — with our Holiday Guide
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fast become fixtures for discriminating drinkers. To highlight the best, we enlisted three connoisseurs (Jason Scavone on spirits, John Curtas on wine, and Greg Thilmont on beer) to share their favorite places and favorite glasses to sip and savor (p. 41). Drink enough (and Uber home!), and you just might be able to forget for a glorious, merciful millisecond that we’re in the midst of an election season whose tone subtly suggests America has broken in half and poison locusts are flying out of the rupture to eat our skin. But not every political topic is necessarily a total pain to discuss: This season also marks the end of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s long and colorful tenure in the Senate. On p. 50, KTNV Channel 13 political commentator Jon Ralston, Review-Journal political columnist Steve Sebelius (both regular KNPR contributors) and UNLV history professor Michael Green pool their memories to consider pivotal moments in Reid’s career — moments that shaped him, to be sure, but also moments that shaped Nevada and national politics. You can certainly argue that Reid’s signature, unfiltered brand of blunt talk and schoolyard-worthy burns only fertilized our current age of hyperpartisan verbal trench warfare, but you also can’t deny the senator’s indelible impact on Nevada’s economy, politics and culture — now and Andrew Kiraly editor for many years to come.
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More than an art festival. A cherished Summerlin fall tradition.
A FREE OUTDOOR FESTIVAL OCTOBER 8 - 9 | 10 AM - 5 PM | DOWNTOWN SUMMERLIN® 100 celebrated fine artists displaying art for sale Live music, entertainment and children’s activities Delicious culinary offerings from Downtown Summerlin eateries
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October 2016
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Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 1 0
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Features 41 sip, tipple, belt Creative mixology is a wonderful thing, but there are times to get back to basics. Booze. Wine. Beer. We’ve compiled a helpful list of great places around the valley to lift your spirits. Plus, a handful of above-average bar snacks and useful lessons in alcohol etiquette.
50 reid Six views of Nevada’s most consequential political career as it draws to a close.
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Preventing child sex trafficking is difficult, unglamorous work. Fortunately, some people are up to the challenge. By Heidi Kyser 31 Dining
All Things 13 business Dome and
domer
32 The Dish Gastropub
fun at Libertine Social 36 at first Bite Food
16 profile Meet Mr.
delivered by conveyor belt — is this the future?
Distillery
59 The Guide
18 zeit bites Liston!
Oodles of culture!
20 Stuff Cigar primer 22 Open Topic In
which we drive a fancy car at high speed
64 End note Hockey’s coming! You have a year to establish your rinkside cred. By Matt Jacob
36
on the cover Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc at Born and Raised Photography Christopher Smith
r e i d : a s s o c i at e d p r e s s ; t r a f f i c k i n g : Ya n n l e g e n d r e ; d i s t i l l e r : b i l l h u g h e s ; m i x o lo g i s t : s a b i n o r r ; m e at ; b r e n t h o l m e s
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Photo by Amy Schroeder
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Straight No Chaser: I’ll Have Another… 20th Anniversary World Tour
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Jethro Tull written and performed by Ian Anderson
Harlem Quartet with Aldó Lopez – Gavilán
OCTOBER 5
OCTOBER 14
OCTOBER 14 & 15
Deepak Chopra: The Future of Wellbeing
Johnny Mathis The 60th Anniversary Concert Tour
Celtic Thunder: Legacy
OCTOBER 28
OCTOBER 29
NOVEMBER 7
OCTOBER 26
OCTOBER 15
Frankie Moreno OCTOBER 5 & 24
Megan Hilty with Seth Rudetsky OCTOBER 15 & 16
Jack Jones
Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band
An Evening with Bob Newhart
NOVEMBER 13
NOVEMBER 19
Photo by Howie Grapek
OCTOBER 17 & 18
Acoustic Alchemy OCTOBER 20 & 21
Lainie Kazan NOVEMBER 22 – 27
OCTOBER 28 & 29
702.749.2000 | TTY: 800.326.6868 or dial 711 | Group Inquiries: 702.749.2348 | 361 Symphony Park Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89106 |
p u b l i s h e D B y n e va d a p u b l i c r a d i o
Mission Statement Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans. With awardwinning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain. We spark dialogue, engage people and define the spirit of the Las Vegas Valley. Publisher Flo Rogers corporate support manager Favian Perez Editor Andrew Kiraly Art Director Christopher Smith deputy editor Scott Dickensheets senior designer Scott Lien staff writer Heidi Kyser Graphic Designer Brent Holmes Account executives Sharon Clifton, Parker McCoy, Kim Trevino, Markus Van’t Hul sales assistant Ashley Smith NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Couture Marketing 145 E 17th Street, Suite B4 New York, NY 10003 (917) 821-4429 advertising@couturemarketing Marketing manager Lisa Kelly print traffic manager Karen Wong
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Subscription manager Tammy Willis Web administrator Danielle Branton Contributing writers John Curtas, Cybele, Michael Green, Mélanie Hope, Matt Jacob, Joseph Langdon, Debbie Lee, Jon Ralston, Jason Scavone, Steve Sebelius, Alan Snel, Greg Thilmont, Kisty Totten, Chuck Twardy, Stacy J. Willis, Misti Yang Contributing artists Bill Hughes, Yann Legendre, Aaron Mayes, Chris Morris, Sabin Orr, Paul Ryding, Lucky Wenzel Editorial: Andrew Kiraly, (702) 259-7856; andrew@desertcompanion.vegas Fax: (702) 258-5646 Advertising: Favian Perez (702) 259-7826; favian@desertcompanion.vegas Subscriptions: (702) 258-9895; subscriptions@desertcompanion.vegas Website: www.desertcompanion.vegas Desert Companion is published 12 times a year by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact Tammy Willis for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.
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welcome to the adel-d ome DOME DOME DOME ...
business
Sudden death As the Adelson-NFL stadium proposal moves rapidly forward, is Las Vegas getting a raw deal — or an honest discussion of the project’s pros and cons? By Alan Snel
i l lu s t r at i o n b r e n t h o l m e s
When a cigar is so much more than a cigar page 20
T
he story goes something like this: It’s a textbook example of sleazy backroom power politics. In a series of secret meetings, a venal politician and pro sports team execs hammer out a sweetheart stadium deal, which is rushed through a vote before the public ever gets a chance to express its opinion on spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer money on the project. Or maybe it goes something like this: A giant pro sports conglomerate pitches an economically stalled city on a shiny new sports megacomplex — bankrolled largely by public funds. The city scrutinizes the proposal, discovering the cost to taxpayers is much higher than advertised. The mayor balks at the price tag.
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ALL Things
business
Hear more The public does, too, through numerous polls commissioned by the local newspaper. Despite the conglomerate’s huffing and hectoring, the mayor says thanks, but no thanks. Those aren’t fairy tales. They’re true stories. The first happened in Georgia’s Cobb County in 2013, when then-County Commission Chair Tim Lee essentially slipped $400 million to The Braves for a new stadium in the Atlanta suburbs. (Outraged voters tossed Lee out of office the following election.) The second story is unfolding in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation is pushing to build a new, $1.8-billion home for its pro hockey team, The Flames — with the public expected to pony up more than $1 billion. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has been cool on the proposal, telling the press earlier this year, “Perhaps in other cities ... the city councils have just written checks based on back-of-the-napkin proposals, without any consultation from the public, or without any analysis. That’s not how we operate here.” Such stories are worth keeping in mind as the pro sports stadium proposal by Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and Majestic Realty (owned by billionaire Ed Roski) moves forward. Adelson is dangling the prospect of the Raiders relocating to Las Vegas, hoping the state Legislature bites at the NFL bait and approves a hotel room charge increase to raise $750 million toward the nearly $2 billion project. A tourism advisory committee created by Gov. Brian Sandoval signed off on the hotel tax hike. And now, recent moves — such as Adelson’s give-us-the-money-or-we’re-walking ultimatum to the state tourism panel in August, and pressuring the Legislature for a special session devoted to the
“It is a rush job,” says Giunchigliani. “Why are we talking about a special session? The Legislature starts February 1, and you can have a methodical review.”
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Hear a
stadium — are making some politidiscussion of bankrolled stadium.) cians concerned that the process is “This few-month process the stadium proposal more a backroom deal than a model is much shorter than the one on “KNPR’s of transparency. Clark County we went through at the city State of Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani with our (Major League SocNevada” thinks the full-court stadium push cer) stadium debate a couple at desert companion. has “hijacked” the process. of years ago, and I think it com/hear “It is a rush job,” says Giunchiglishould be examined more more ani. “Why are we talking about a before taking government special session? The Legislature starts action,” says City Councilman Bob Beers. February 1, and you can have a methodiIn the city’s soccer saga, Beers sought cal review.” to get an advisory question on the June Indeed, getting a stadium subsidy 2015 municipal ballot asking voters how typically takes longer. Consider Denver, they felt about a $56.5-million subsidy where multi-Super Bowl champion for the prospective MLS stadium. Broncos are local religion — but the team And if the Nevada Legislature and still needed several years in the 1990s to the Clark County Commission do win the state legislature’s blessing on a seriously grapple with the $750 million stadium sales tax before metro Denver question, there are plenty of questions voters approved it. Elsewhere, municito ask — such as whether the stadium palities ask hard questions of would-be would really generate $530 million arena developers. In Seattle, city leaders annually in county spending (“The were initially in favor of hedge-fund bilnumbers are absurd on many levels. lionaire Chris Hansen’s proposal to lure The average NFL team generates less pro basketball back to the Emerald City than $350 million in annual revewith a $490 million stadium (with $200 nue,” says Holy Cross College sports million of that supplied by public bonds). economist Victor Matheson); and But the deal is now all but dead after the whether developers’ projected game city took a hard look at how the stadium attendance numbers are realistic (“The would affect traffic and commerce in projections on the anticipated events, Seattle’s Sodo District, and voted down a attendance, and overnight stays are all crucial street closure. beyond the outer limits of wild optiThe point isn’t that the city council mism,” says Jim Nagourney, a former said no to a billionaire’s proposed vice president of business for the New arena. The point is that it thoroughly York Mets and New York Islanders, did its homework. and former sports consultant for cities “In their talks about building an arena of Anaheim, Baltimore and Chicago). to bring back an NBA team to replace Field of Schemes author deMause, a the Sonics, Seattle had a million public vocal critic of taxpayer-funded sports hearings, and the city council drove stadiums, advises the state and county a hard bargain,” says Neil deMause, to remember that they’re ultimately in a coauthor of the book Field of Schemes: position of strength. How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns “If I had one piece of advice, I’d tell Public Money into Private Profit. “They them to drive a harder bargain. The did their due diligence.” Raiders are being offered zero dollars By contrast, Adelson/Raiders/Majesin Oakland, so (local governments) tic are lobbying with little public-forum are only bidding against themselves. discussion. Outside of a monthly Would the Raiders still come if they morning meeting held by the Southwere offered $500 million or $250 ern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure million? (Elected officials) have to ask, Committee, there’s been no gathering ‘What is the team worth to us?’ But if for residents. (A Sands-commissioned you start negotiating from a position poll found — surprise — that 60 percent of, ‘How can we get a deal done?,’ of Nevada voters supported a publicly you’ve already lost.”
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ALL Things
people
profile
George Racz Owner, Las Vegas Distillery
F
or all the hooch thrown back daily in Sin City, until fairly recently no whiskeys or other heady spirits had been produced here legally since Prohibition was repealed in 1933. This changed five years ago, thanks to George Racz. That’s when his Las Vegas Distillery opened shop and began turning winter wheat from Winnemucca into crystal-clear vodka. These days, the Henderson-based small business turns out potables from single-grain rye whiskey and rum to seven-grain bourbon and apple pie-flavored moonshine.
A circuitous path led Racz to his career as a liquor entrepreneur. Born of Hungarian descent in Romania’s famed Transylvania region, he moved to New York City in the early 2000s when his then-girlfriend, now-wife obtained a U.S. green card as a university student. A bit of local travel became the germ of an eventually fully distilled idea. “In 2008, we went on a weekend in Upstate New York. By mistake, instead of going left, we went right and found ourselves in front of Tuthilltown Spirits, the first whiskey makers in New York State,” Racz recalls on an early Saturday morning in his shop’s tasting room, prior to leading a weekend distilling class. “We fell in love with the people. “We just went in and started to talk with them, and at the end of the day, when we went home, we put a map of the United States on the carpet of the living room and started to Google which states didn’t have a distillery. First came Montana, and afterward, Nevada.”
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So, completely sight unseen, they decamped for Las Vegas. “We were very naïve,” Racz says. “We’d never been to Las Vegas. We put everything in a blue van — that I have still — and we crossed America.” Talk about a boozy gamble. He didn’t come from a generational distillery background in Europe, though his grandfather George — as all the males in his lineage are named, including his son, George Jr. — did have a country-style pot still that was used to make small batches of homemade plum and cherry brandies. It was a veritable leap of faith. Once they settled here in 2009, Racz found himself in a nascent industry sector and set upon the task of educating himself in its operations and finer points. “There were fewer than 50 distilleries in the United States. Today there are more than 1,000,” he says. “I went up to Spokane, Washington, to Dry Fly Distillery. I met Don Poffenroth and
Kent Fleischmann (the founders), who became our mentors and very good friends.” He spent weeks in hands-on learning; he ordered enormous pieces of copper equipment from Germany. He was ready to distill. Almost. At that time, Nevada didn’t have any laws governing the production of high-proof alcoholic beverages. So, with bootstrap DIY grit, he set to working with the Legislature to draft the Nevada Craft Distillery Bill (AB 153), which was signed by Governor Brian Sandoval on June 10, 2013. Drop by drop, drip by drip, Racz gained expertise in the fine points of distilling over the ensuing years, including the fact that the Mojave’s dry climate claims more than three times the evaporative “angel’s share” than is lost in barrels aged in more humid environs like Kentucky or Scotland. All the while, he gained a growing and enthusiastic customer base, which not only purchases his products but visits for tours, classes, events and drinks at a weekend bar (see lasvegasdistillery.com). Along the way, he also founded the Artisan Booze District, which now includes nearby Bad Beat Brewing, CraftHaus Brewery and the Grape Expectations winemaking school. On October 1, Las Vegas Distillery celebrates its fifth anniversary. Now that’s something to toast to with two fingers of Black Label Blended Whiskey No. 1 — on the rocks or neat, your choice. Greg Thilmont
p h oto g r a p h y b i l l h u g h e S
ALL Things
zeit bites
reading
Partly Sonny Boxer Liston appears occasionally in new bio — but Vegas looms large C h u c k T wa r d y
I
t’s important to note what comes after The Murder of Sonny Liston in the title of Shaun Assael’s latest book: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights (Penguin Random House, $27). The ESPN investigative reporter, trying to set the possible murder of the ex-champ in cultural and historical context, seems to write more about Vegas Valley politics, drug-dealing police, and Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier than about Liston. I did not actually count the number of its 320 pages with nothing about Liston, but I plowed through long sections on these subtopics wondering how, exactly, Assael would tie them to the discovery of Liston’s bloated body in his Ottawa Drive home on January 5, 1971. Speaking of which, in the Introduction, and again toward the end of the book, Assael treats the reader to a description of the five-day-old corpse that might be described charitably as “detailed.” This sets the tone for Assael’s matter-of-fact approach, which, after all, is peopled with blunt characters from the fight world and the vice squad. Still, I’d like to propose a moratorium on writing about Las Vegas in noir-ish prose. I read an uncorrected galley and shouldn’t quote from it, so I can only hope that a few eye-roll-inducing sentences have been fixed. Liston’s tale threads through the book’s socio-cultural exposition, cobbled together to a great extent from earlier biographies. He also delves into the archives of the Las Vegas Sun, at one point reprinting publisher Hank Greenspun’s page-one story about the “disappearance” of Howard Hughes. What has that to do with Sonny Liston? Something about the shifting sands of wealth and power in end-of-Sixties Las Vegas, presumably. Assael imagines Sonny, recuperating from a car wreck, reading Greenspun’s story before or after one about his crash. It’s among several reconstructed moments in a book bristling with conditionals. To his credit, Assael admits that questions about Liston’s death might never be resolved, but that does not keep him from mulling possible murderers and conspirators. He shoe-leathers through the possibilities, tracking down retired detectives and
Sense of Place
Trail and tribulations An occasional series in which writers seek meaning in specific locations around Southern Nevada. I’m traipsing up Red Rock’s Kraft Mountain. Lungs blazing. Glutes and quads throbbing. Heart threatening to bust. This snaking trail — my cohort through many trials of the spirit — seems gruff today, maybe pissed that it’s been so long? It’s my comeback hike after six months nursing a herniated disc, as it was the comeback hike after nine months with a broken foot, as it was the hill I trotted up on my 41st birthday — on that gorgeous spring day, I sang under heavy breaths to an audience of yellow wildflowers, a mad woman hopping from boulder to boulder in song, so grateful to be healthy, to be alive, to be right here. To be sure, this desert and red-rock-
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shady operatives, each with something to add, little of it conclusive. Still, these are the best parts of the book, when Assael describes encounters with Las Vegas old-timers and their memories of Liston, who comes across variously as clever, rakish, self-pitying and mean. Born to a sharecropping family in Arkansas, Liston fought his way to fame, and was wise enough to know where he stood as an “angry black man” in a racist town. But he was so dissolute, drinking, dealing and shooting up, that it almost does not matter whether he was murdered. He was already careening down a dead end.
stacked hill is not the Conservation Area’s longest nor toughest trail, but it is easy to access in Calico Basin, past a few old ranches and heartbreaking new homes, and it has afforded me a quick nature getaway for nearly 20 years. Today I greeted these sturdy yuccas as old friends, these rust-touched boulders as long lost family, and then the initial 600-foot rise tried to kill me. It works like that. Soon, I could think of nothing but pushing one foot in front of the other, the soles of my feet remembering the give of the gravel, my eyes scanning the trail for traction, my sciatic nerve — and every worry I’ve ever had — deferring to an otherworldly will to make it up this hill. And I do. People say it’s the view of the valley from here that’s breathtaking, that offers perspective and renewal. But for me, it’s the pact with the trail. –Stacy J. Willis
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ALL Things
stuff
Object lesson
It’s just a cigar Except at Don Vicente Cigars, where they share the old Cuban wisdom of matching fine, handrolled tobacco to the perfect occasion B y J o s e p h L a n g d o n
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his year, for the first time in more than half a century, Americans can legally partake of that fabled forbidden fruit, the Cuban cigar — when they’re not on American soil. Despite easing tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, smoking a Cuban here is still prohibido. But if you want a Cuban-made cigar right here, right now, we can make that happen. At Don Vicente Cigars (624 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-386-9117), Cuban expat Vicente Perez applies his family’s five generations of experience to produce 100 percent hand-rolled cigars. Like, they actually roll them right there at a little desk. You can watch as you enjoy a stogie and sip your preferred aperitif, often alongside the Don and his friends and family. Cigars are pretty simple: tobacco leaves rolled in other tobacco leaves. But the different varieties and blends, shapes and sizes, produce an array of possibilities that can be overwhelming. The company’s CEO, Altoris Levar, says that choosing the right cigar isn’t just about the cigar. “A cigar is a tool of leisure,” he explains. It creates a vibe, and it’s about pairing that vibe with the right occasion. “Cigars have many different personalities to match the many different personalities of people.”
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the old bulldog himself, you’re a boss, and you want the world to know it. “Big car, big house, big cigar,” Levar says. A lighter-colored cigar indicates a milder,
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The Churchill Like
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creamier flavor — this bad boy will burn smoothly for the hour-plus it takes to smoke it. The occasion: You did a banker thing, and you did it well. You’re the top hat, and you just passed Go. You’re fighting them at sea, in the air, on the beaches. You shall never surrender.
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The Pyramid This sharp cigar “embodies success,” Levar says, and its tapered shape gives it a bit of panache. You can get it box-pressed (squared off rather than round) for a more comfortable fit in the mouth. Like wines and whiskeys, premium tobacco leaves are aged for years to bring out their characteristics. Darker wrappers, like the maduro, produce a bolder, sweeter flavor. The occasion: You’re chilling at the same club with that guy over there who you’re not sure exactly who he is but you’re pretty sure he’s famous.
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The Corona Long and lean, you can jam this one between your teeth, loner-style. Most cigars have a band, and it’s hotly debated among aficionados whether you should take if off before lighting up. Some people want to show off their brand; others smoke just for themselves. We’re guessing Clint Eastwood takes off the band. The occasion: You’ve got your hat and poncho, you’re roaming the desert, you’re about to ask some punk if he feels lucky, and you’re so badass you don’t even care that that’s not the same movie.
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The Robusto This cigar’s shorter length and slightly smaller gauge make it popular among the growing ranks of lady smokers — but don’t confuse that with being dainty. Its more manageable smoking time makes it a great punctuation mark for a job well done. The occasion: You just brought down the mother ship, and the planet is safe. For now.
p h oto g r a p h y L u c ky W e n z e l
Roll with it: Vicente Perez of Don Vicente Cigars, above, demonstrates his hand-rolling technique, below.
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The Perfecto With
its bulbous middle and tapered point, the perfecto is straight-up, old-school villain. The last time you saw one was probably in the mouth of a cartoon character tying a damsel to the tracks. Their distinct shape indicates a centuries-old hand-rolling method. Bitterness, the classic mark of a bad cigar, results from poor rolling or stems being left on the leaf. Hand-rolling, Levar says, is the best way to avoid these pitfalls. Even the dastardly don’t want a bitter smoke. The occasion: About to set your evil plot in motion, you broke your monocle while twirling your mustache. But just because you’re foiled again doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a good smoke.
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The Culebra This monstrosity isn’t even a cigar, really. It’s several cigars, braided together. Levar explains that this practice started when rollers on the plantation were permitted to have one cigar at the end of their shift, so they started weaving three or more together. Look, boss, one cigar! (Pro tip: You cannot smoke like a cigar roller. Unbraid that sucker.) The occasion: You’ve toiled all day for meager wages, like you’ve done for innumerable days past and will for innumerable days ahead, and you wish only to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Or some blackjack!
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ALL Things
open topic
discomfort zone
All the pretty horses Six-hundred of them, howling under the hood of the beautiful Lamborghini that I’m driving scary fast B y Ja s o n S c av o n e
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ou feel the force of the car bore into your side like someone is jabbing a finger under your ribs, trying to dig to your kidneys. Then you spin the wheel the other way and another invisible finger jabs you from the opposite direction. The accelerometer shows we’re pulling 1G to the right and whipping immediately to 1G to the left. A quick 2G shift. The space shuttle pulls 3Gs on reentry. Strapping into a Lamborghini Huracan and stomping on the gas pedal, you don’t feel like you necessarily won’t fly into space, if you caught a particularly well-angled ramp or something. But it’s just a day at the track at SpeedVegas, the latest offering in the fast cars/fast times subsector of Las Vegas tourism, joining Dream Racing and Exotics Racing, both at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as places to put your hands on a supercar. SpeedVegas, though, is located in Sloan and is counting on something the Speedway driving experiences can’t: easy visibility to the hordes of Vegas-bound California tourists who drive right past it on the I-15. “This corridor brings in about 49,500 cars per day,” says Aaron Fessler, SpeedVegas’ co-founder and CEO. “Historically, Sloan was viewed as this industrial area with a lot of cement-crushing operations and gypsum mining. To their credit, the town is thinking more about this as an entrance point into the corridor. We’re already seeing a lot of adjacent development going on. There’s some housing going in, there’s some property that’s traded hands. There’s a new interchange going in. I think you’re going to see a lot of development here in the next couple of years.” To the extent that a Phoenix developer contacted Fessler to feel out putting a ski lift on an adjacent parcel. Maybe we’re not quite ready for that level of development just yet. Fessler got his start in technology, selling off email operation The Allegro Group
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for $40 million in 1999, when he was 26, then the anti-piracy service MediaSentry in 2005. That’s when he got into cars, acquiring World Class Driving. That business took people out on public-road excursions where they could drive a variety of high-ticket whips. But the one thing Fessler heard over and over again was that driving fantasy cars was great, but people wanted to go fast. Hence, SpeedVegas. Five-oh don’t give tickets on the track. Fessler looks out over his kingdom, the track, the pit, the currently under-construction clubhouse and the rows of six-figure supercars. “We call them Skittles,” he says. They’re bright, shiny, candy-colored and appeal to our inner 10-year-old. Mine especially.
*** Rob jumps into the passenger side of the Lamborghini Huracan. He’s been a driving instructor for more than 10 years and is incredibly enthusiastic about taking me from average V-4-pushing, California-driver-cursing, I-15 traffic-weaver to reasonably competent track racer. The track itself is Formula One-inspired, with a half-mile straightaway that’s significantly longer than the one at the Speedway’s street course. In practice, this means taking a Frankenstein stomp on the gas pedal when you exit the last turn to try to hit the kinds of speeds that get grudging nods of respect from your buddies. Hitting those numbers, though, requires executing on the turns, coming out at maximum speed and smoothly bringing the Lambo’s 600 horses back up to speed. In practice, it’s less Michael Schumacher and more Michael Bluth. The first lap it’s hard to trust that the car won’t act like your daily driver and skid all over the road when you take turns at 50 mph. That’s why Rob is there. In addition to hollering when to shift, brake or step on the gas, the savvy co-pilot will grab the wheel when you’re making a tentative turn and jam it to the left so your performance car will
ILLUSTRATION h e r n a n va l e n c i a
like the valets in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The Huracan is a growly car to begin with, but when you push it toward 130 mph it screams like King Kong swatting at biplanes. Crossing 125, you want to keep on the gas even though you’re running out of asphalt. Rob calls for the brakes and it starts to sound like a suggestion more than a command. Fortunately, Rob has his
own brake, just in case. Common sense snaps my Lamborghini hypnotism and we decelerate into a cool-down lap. It’s hard to give up a car like that and go back to your daily driver. It’s even harder to keep it under 90 mph as you cruise up the I-15 back to normal life. The cops are going to have a field day hanging around that on-ramp.
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actually do performance-car things. Once it’s forcibly proven to you that you won’t spin out of control, you start to relax. The road course eases you in with a couple of easy ones before throwing you directly into a hairpin that asks you to look all the way to your left as you exit the turn, and let your hands follow — without watching the turn itself. This is terrifying. This is clocking 40 mph on a no-look turn in a $270,000 sports car. Someone else’s $270,000 sports car — a fact that becomes very clear as you try to remember if your last insurance payment went through. The track jigs and dances through smaller turns, the ones that produce the G forces, before the next big one, where you have to brake into the bank and turn at the same time. It’s here where you start to feel like you have to have at least as much box-office appeal as Ludacris, and more driving experience for the next Fast and Furious, so why couldn’t you co-star with The Rock? There’s one more big turn before the straightaway. It’s not quite as sharp as the early hairpin, but it’s so demanding and unforgiving that on the first lap, I lose so much speed I don’t even get the Huracan up to 100 mph by the end of the unfettered straight. Rob sees me get overambitious with an upshift into fifth gear, and hides his disgust when he tells me to downshift. It causes the kind of lingering embarrassment usually reserved for dreams about being naked and late for class in the seventh grade. The second lap goes better. You start to get a feel for the car and want to outrace your speed-based shame. The turns are still a bit of a learning process, but you start to feel comfortable with all that horsepower, like you might need to put an old Corvette engine in your golf cart, or invest in some sort of turbocharger to scoot around on your office chair. The third lap is when it all comes into focus. You know the turns and you want to muscle up on the wheel to get through them as fast as possible. Rob’s yelling “Go! Go!” in a way that no longer implies he thinks you’re finally going to be the student to sail the car off the track
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Society
Off track The fight against juvenile sex trafficking is ignored, stigmatized and underfunded, but a small army of victim advocates is determined to change that B y H e i d i K ys e r
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round 10 years ago, Lena Walther got a startling call from a frightened young woman begging to be rescued. She’d had a baby with a man who was holding her captive and pimping her out. The young woman was a citizen of Sweden, which is why she called Walther, Nevada’s Swedish consul. Walther recalls her response: “I’m not coming to get you, because we’ll all get killed. You grab that baby and get out of there. Call 911. The police will go get you and take you to a shelter, and I’ll get you from there.” It took a couple weeks, but that’s how it went down. Swedish passports in hand, Walther went to the Shade Tree women’s shelter to pick up the new mother, who’d apparently been drugged and physically abused. She’d been under the pimp’s control for a year and a half. “I got the baby a temporary passport, because there was no father’s name on the birth certificate,” Walther says. “She thought the hospital had done it on purpose because she’d been in there so many times, beaten up. Within a week, they were gone. Safe.” Walter is a petite blonde who sports tailored dresses and glossy nails. She speaks in the commanding tones of a European ballet mistress, arching her voice incredulously when she says: “That young woman was a civil engineer who’d come here as a tourist!” After a second, similar call a cou-
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ple years later, Walther started poking around. She went to Southern Nevada Human Trafficking Task Force meetings. She learned that sex trafficking was not just a problem for foreigners like those who’d contacted her, but also for countless U.S. citizens and permanent residents, many — unthinkable to her at the time — children. Walther dug more. To her horror, she found out that a couple hundred sexually exploited minors a year pass through Southern Nevada’s criminal system, some jailed, others sent to shelters with inadequate security, most ending up runaways, back in the hands of their pimps, walking “the track,” as it’s called. She felt she had to do something about it. She tried to help a friend who was working toward forensic specialist licensure start a clinic for girls, but the friend’s certification fell through, and so did the project.
“What I really wanted to do was bring awareness to kids before they end up in a trafficking circle,” Walther says. “Because once they’re there, they’ll never be normal again.” In 2014, Walther founded her own nonprofit, Awareness Is Prevention, a name that came from a UNLV student who’d heard her speak and said, “Until there’s awareness, it will never stop.” By then several years into her involvement in the world of adolescent sex trafficking, Walther knew it was filled with diverse characters — churches, cops, lawyers, social workers — scrapping over scarce resources to solve a problem that most community members don’t want to think about, much less solve. But that didn’t deter her. Awareness Is Prevention is soliciting entries into an art contest designed to teach youngsters how to recognize someone
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who’s grooming them for sex work and get out of the situation before it’s too late. Volunteers are spreading the word about the contest through community centers and youth groups, because most schools won’t address such a sensitive subject, Walther says. She hopes for at least 50 participants in the contest’s first run, and that it will catch on and grow in the future. The social stigma is only one of many obstacles daunting those who battle juvenile sex trafficking. Moreover, their wins — such as getting a safe-harbor law passed in the 2015 state legislative session — are few and far between. What keeps them going against such dismal odds? “Once you’ve seen this, it’s impossible to walk away from,” Walther says. ‘Just prostitutes’
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sk people who fight the sex trafficking of minors if it’s a serious problem in Las Vegas, and they’ll unequivocal-
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ly say yes. Ask them to prove it, and they falter. “It’s an illegal activity, so it’s hard to track anywhere,” says Alexis KenArtful nedy, a UNLV criminal savior: Lena Walther of justice professor whose Awareness Is research focuses on lePrevention gal issues related to child abuse and exploitation, including sex trafficking. reach workers from one organization In 2007, Kennedy ashad identified 400 prostituted children sessed domestic minor sex trafficking on the streets of Las Vegas in one month, (meaning the commercial sexual exMay 2007, alone. Another source found ploitation of residents under 18) in Las that nearly 1,500 minors had been adjuVegas, surveying existing data and interdicated for prostitution-related charges viewing 25 people from 16 agencies who between 1994 and 2007. regularly interact with victims. Her work “Every year, I analyze Judge (William) was part of a federally funded study of Voy’s calendar,” Kennedy says today, re10 metropolitan hotspots, including Las ferring to the Clark County juvenile court Vegas, coordinated by nonprofit Shared judge. “There is no other specialty juvenile Hope International. court in the U.S. that has as big a (minor In her report, Kennedy said that out-
P h ot o g r a p h y : A a r o n M ay e s
society
sex trafficking) caseload as ours. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.” In other words, there are many other cases that go unnoticed. On its website, national anti-human trafficking nonprofit Polaris gives this disclaimer: “There is no official estimate of the total number of victims in the U.S.,” adding that it’s probably in the “hundreds of thousands.” Polaris bases its estimate partly on calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. Since 2007, 1,247 calls have referenced Nevada; so far this year there have been 105 calls, resulting in 77 human trafficking cases. All but nine involve either sex, sex and labor or an unspecified type of trafficking (the remainder are pure labor cases). A third of those trafficked are minors; nine out of 10 are female or other gender minorities. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has identified 110 sex trafficking victims so far this year among the minors it has picked up for various offenses. This isn’t news to advocates like Kennedy and Walther. So, why isn’t it part of the public conversation? Kennedy says it’s been difficult to get corporate sponsorship for events related to such a depressing issue in a city that runs on tourism and hospitality. Some experts attribute the lack of awareness to local mores. “Las Vegas maintains a hypersexualized culture, where sexuality is sold at multiple levels, from strip clubs to topless pools — all of which are advertised publicly,” wrote a team of UNLV researchers who released the results of their comprehensive youth sex trade study in March. “Thus, the commodification of sex and sexuality is ever-present in the resident community.” Others say a dearth of prevention and recovery resources for adolescent victims is just one example of the community’s greater failure to invest in its children. Kennedy gives the example of accredited centers for assisting abused children who’ve been removed from their homes, noting that Nevada has only two, while New Mexico — a state with 700,000 fewer residents — has nine. And anti-sex trafficking programs for minors suffer from a particular prejudice: Teenage girls who walk the streets are seen as criminals rather than the victims they truly are, according to Metro
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Society
Wish list Desert Companion asked: If there were funding for the fight against sex trafficking, what would you use it for? To prosecute johns, which has helped to reduce sex trafficking of minors in Sweden. (Lena Walther, Awareness Is Prevention) To get the community talking — not about just this, but also related issues, such as child abuse. (Alexis Kennedy, UNLV) More studies, better quantification of the problem. (Kennedy) To generate more support from the school district, so teachers and administrators don’t have to organize presentations on their own. (Patricia Spencer, Metro) Bigger, more impactful awareness campaigns, such as the threestory-high ads reading, “Have sex with children, go to jail” displayed on the sides of buildings in other countries. (Esther Brown, The Embracing Project) More professionals working on all aspects of the problem. (All sources) A safe house. (All sources)
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Lieutenant Patricia Spencer, who commands the department’s vice and sex trafficking section and heads the local task force of the FBI’s Innocence Lost initiative. “Once you understand the crime — the whole game and the life it entails — you don’t want to lock them up,” Spencer says. “They’re brainwashed and traumatized and have no idea what they’re doing.” She describes a typical case: A charming man flirts with a vulnerable girl he meets in public, gets her phone number and then privately begins grooming her with flattery, expensive dates and lavish gifts. He isolates her from friends and family. Once she’s hooked on his affection and generosity, he explains that it’s time she returns the favor by working for him. For a while, the girl still believes the pimp is her boyfriend, which makes her easier to manipulate. The physical violence doesn’t come until later, when she resists doing what he tells her. Information like this is included in a special sex trafficking curriculum for police officers, Spencer says. “For a few years, they took it out of the academy, and we fought to get it put back in last year. … The problem is, most people look at it as a prostitution issue. How do you explain that they’re victims when people look at them as a blight on society: ‘What do you mean? They’re just prostitutes.’” Give ’em shelter
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he police academy curriculum Spencer mentions is an example of a national trend that aims to prevent juvenile sex trafficking by educating people who are likely to come into contact with victims. In July, NPR reported on Truckers Against
Trafficking, highlighting the story of a professional driver who rescued a young woman from six years of sexual slavery when he noticed suspicious activity in a truck stop parking lot and called police. TAT educates truck drivers about what to look for and distributes stickers, wallet cards and posters with a hotline number to call if they see something suspicious. Health-care professionals are ideal front-line soldiers in the fight for prevention, Laura Culley says. As associate dean of health policy and community affairs for the UNLV School of Medicine, Culley is not only making sure that trafficking victim identification and assistance run through the new medical school’s curriculum, but is also creating a training course for other health workers and developing a protocol for connecting people who want help with community resources. “We’re hoping to create a model that other cities can use,” she says. Security guards in hotel-casinos are also well-placed to intervene, Spencer says, and now have an example to follow. After a couple sex traffic escapees ran to Aria security for help last year, the hotel decided it had a problem to address. For six months, it’s had a training program to teach security personnel how to identify and assist victims. “They have posters with the hotline number throughout the security office,” Spencer says. “The staff asks anybody they take into custody if they need help or are being forced to do what they’re doing.” With the ship slowly turning toward prevention, the next step is protection, according to best practices outlined by the federal government. Here, too, experts
P h ot o g r a p h y : A a r o n M ay e s
Street fighters: Left, Metro Lieutenant Patricia Spencer; right, Esther Brown of The Embracing Project
agree, Southern Nevada is failing. Safe harbor laws, such as the one that passed in Nevada last year, are meant to divert minors who get busted for prostitution and related crimes from the criminal justice system to social assistance. The problem is that Las Vegas lacks somewhere secure to send victims to. There are nonprofit facilities that take in young people and offer them health and human services; WestCare is a well-known example. But the problem is, they’re not fortresses. “The juveniles are trained,” Spencer says. “The pimp tells them, ‘If you get picked up by the police, I’ll get you out. If you go to WestCare, then leave as soon as you can, and I’ll pick you up.’ … They’re trained to run, and they almost always do. That’s why we have to send them to juvenile hall, because we have no lock-down facility.” Esther Brown, who runs local nonprofit The Embracing Project, says that detention is not ideal, but it’s often the best-case-sce-
nario in the current environment because it keeps victims separated from their pimps long enough that they start to become receptive to help. The Embracing Project is allowed to stand with public defenders to advocate for victims before Voy, and Brown works with probation officers and community partners so that when kids are discharged they can go someplace where she can keep tabs on them. “A big problem we have is continuity between Las Vegas and other jurisdictions,” she says. “If a girl is being sent back to California or wherever, sometimes there’s no connection to services in those parts of the country. Without that, they can end up being killed.” The game’s high stakes make perhaps the most compelling argument for people to care, and for things to change. “Trafficking the last few years has surpassed drugs and arms as the most profitable (illicit) trade in the world,”
Walther says. “One girl can bring a pimp a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, and remember: That’s tax-free money. They’ll do anything to keep that kind of income. It’s a nightmare.” Spencer adds that a pimp who’s willing to brutally beat his main source of income is an even more violent menace to anyone standing between her and him, from social workers to babies. This is organized crime, she says, with a hierarchy, rules and other illegal activities to support operations. “Pimps are by definition psychopaths, so I have thousands of psychopaths on my beat running around terrorizing the city,” Spencer says. “The more we arrest, the more rewarding it is. One pimp is responsible for between three and eight girls, so for every one guy we get, we’ve released that many girls from their nightmare.” Making sure they wake up to something better has to be the community’s next priority.
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Our c i ty's be st spots to eat & drink
Cool factor: Libertine Social's grilled and chilled prawns
P hoto g rap h y By Sabin Orr
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Dining out
Crowd pleaser: Left, Libertine Social's grilled and chilled prawns; right, Petaluma chicken
The DISH
Friend reQuest A chef and a cocktail artist team up to launch Libertine Social, a high-concept gastropub with a focus on down-to-earth fun B y M i s t i Ya n g
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helk toast paired with pineapple-infused frozen vodka may sound like an unlikely appetizer, but without this dish, there might have been no Libertine Social, the nouveau gastropub that opened at Mandalay Bay in August. (For those not acquainted with the wide world of edible mollusks, a whelk is a giant predatory sea snail, which sounds slightly terrifying.) That light bite was the product of the first collaboration, five years ago, between Chef Shawn McClain and mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim, the duo behind the new venture. Rewind to 2011, when the two had teamed up on Iron Chef to compete against Chef Marc Forgione and mixologist Charlotte Voisey. They prevailed with lively, unusual pairings such as, you guessed it, whelk toast and frozen vodka. “I always say it was definitely a kindred spirit that was recognized early on,” McClain says. Fast-forward from that fateful snail to 18 months ago, when McClain approached MGM about creating another dining destination. After he settled on Mandalay Bay as its future home, what began as a restaurant concept evolved to something that embraced a bar program as ambitious as the food menu. “That is when Tony and I first had a conversation,” McClain says. Abou-Ganim’s reply to the pitch: “Heck yes.” “After Iron Chef, we had an opportunity to do some festivals together and a couple of
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charity events,” Abou-Ganim recalls. “It seemed to be a pretty nice marriage, and I think something like this has been needed in Las Vegas for a long time.”
Social studies
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he result of the partnership is a food and drink experience geared decidedly toward social butterflies. If you want a quiet dinner for two or a drink in solitude, Libertine Social might not be your place. Instead, from the restaurant layout to the menus, Libertine Social is designed to encourage interaction and indulgence in equal measure. The lounge area’s communal tables and curvy bar invite you to say hello to your neighbors —
P h oto g r ap h y S a b i n O r r
N E VA DA B A L L E T T H E AT R E ’ S
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and perhaps even play a friendly match of the restaurant’s custom “Liberate” card game, in which players complete truth-or-dare challenges to earn cards. (McClain admits he’s way too shy to ever do well at this game.) Sure, there’s a more traditional dining area in the back, but when seated there, you get the sense that the hostess just put you in time-out. “If there is something I am really proud of in Vegas, it is creating one-off concepts,” McClain says. “They are not carbon copies of anything we’ve done before.” The menus focus on shareable items such as high-concept dips and cocktails by the
(702) 749-2000 NEVADABALLET.ORG Dancer photo by Bill Hughes
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Dining out The main bar's cocktail menu features "swizzles" (pitchers for four), fruit-forward fizzes and 12 retro cocktails, including the Slow, Comfortable Screw and other memorable '80s hits such as Sex on the Beach and the Fuzzy Navel.
Queen's Park Swizzle
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flatbread with a Queen’s Park Swizzle or an opportunity for more parlor tricks ordering the baked goat cheese with a Libwith classic cocktails as well as daisies, ertine Fizz, which features vodka, Campari, cobblers, cups and juleps. limoncello and orange juice. The main bar’s “I am all about the classics,” he says. cocktail menu features “swizzles” (pitchers “It was an opportunity to have a separate for four), fruit-forward fizzes and 12 retro menu and to really celebrate those drinks cocktails, including the Slow, Comfortable that were created before Prohibition and Screw and other memorable ’80s hits such pay respect to those who have paved the as Sex on the Beach and the Fuzzy Navel. way for our profession.” “I started behind the bar in 1980, so Starting the evening with a Freddy Fudpucker and ending with a Claret Cup I remember Kamikazes and how much might seem like cocktail whiplash, but the fun people would have,” Abou-Ganim says. “Anyone who says they do not like reserved chef and easygoing mixologist a well-made, well-balanced Cosmopolitan hope Libertine Social’s attention to craft is just being a little pretentious, I think.” and sourcing make it a kind of sophistiFor those who insist on the true clascated switch-up — or, simply, the ingresics, there’s Libertine Social’s separate dients for a great night out with friends "Best Restaurant..." old and new. Arcade Bar. The menu that features an Swizzle and fizz “It’s kind of like Cheers,” says Abouillustration of a tattooed Charlie ChapPainted Pony Restaurant f course, Libertine Social aims to be as2 W.lin hints at theBlvd. playful spirit within. The Ganim. “You want to be at a place where St. George #22 much about the drinks. Abou-GanimSt. George, space wasUtah originally 84770intended to be a pri- people know your name, and we’re going recommends pairing a country ham(435)634.1700 vate dining room, but Abou-Ganim saw to work very hard at that.” www.Painted-Pony.com
pitcher. For the cuisine, McClain wanted to reimagine American bar food — think earthy, but elevated. (Many of the ingredients are sourced by famed forager Kerry Clasby.) So, say, if you’re a fan of neighborhood watering-hole staples such as chicken wings, Libertine Social offers as an alternative the Petaluma chicken, or even grilled and chilled prawns — indeed, both require a game willingness to get a little messy. Love nachos? McClain suggests the melted farmhouse cheese served with a warm pretzel to match the gooey, shareable appeal of the bar favorite. If sliders are your go-to, he endorses the burger (“Our burger is phenomenal. Why go small?”), but you could also try the braised oxtail crostini for a more adventurous twist.
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Dining out
Whatever floats your bowl: Chubby Cattle offers many styles of hot pot, from the "house original" to the "house hellishly spicy."
at first bite
Will work for food You build your own bowl at Vegas’ first “conveyor-belt” restaurant Chubby Cattle — but it’s certainly a labor of love B y D e bb i e L e e
I
’ve heard people describe hot pot dining, as well as its European counterpart, fondue, as the ultimate con. The notion of charging guests to cook their own meal is an unscrupulous affront to high-maintenance diners, skilled cooks, and lazy people everywhere, right? Perhaps such diners should pivot their perspective, lest they deny themselves a memorable experience at Chubby Cattle, a new Mongolian hot pot restaurant on the outskirts of Chinatown. Rather than bemoan any dubious DIY ethics, consider it a delicious exercise in autonomy. If you’re among the uninitiated, don’t let the menu confuse you. It’s a simple process. First, diners choose a preferred soup base — some with quirky names (“the beautiful tomato”) and others with more intimidating labels (“deepest level hell”) — and a dipping
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sauce for their meal. The next step is to surof slippery glass noodles, buttery beef tenvey the rolling conveyor belt packed with don, shiitake mushrooms, and paper-thin proteins, starches, and vegetables to pluck slices of ribeye with a pleasant, herbal note. (Claims of holistic healing in my bowl are from the parade and swish in. The price of each add-in is determined by the color of its nice, but second to flavor.) bowl, and a handy, color-coded price chart The “house original” is the tamest is affixed to each table as a reference. The option of the lot, but there are plenty of refrigerated, glass-enclosed belt snakes it alternatives to suit every taste. Fans of way around the restaurant so every guest Sichuan cuisine would be better off with is within arm’s reach of the ingredients. the “house hellishly spicy” soup base, a bubbling cauldron of tear-inducing, elecOn a recent visit, I dipped my toes in the tric red broth. Vegetarians are welcome water — or broth, if you will — by ordering to dip bushels of bok choy the basic “house original” pot. C hubb y The milky white broth was and other Asian greens in a C attl e broth flavored with mixed gently perfumed with an assortment of exotic dried ingredients (goji berries, Chinese dates) for purported health benefits. It was subtle, but just enough to infuse the mix
3400 S Jones Blvd. #15 Las Vegas, NV 702-868-8808
HOURS Daily 5p-12a chubbycattle.com
mushrooms. And for seafood lovers, the “dragon king” pot is the ideal base for tiger prawns and scallops. Pricier supplements
P h oto g r ap h y B r e n t Ho l m e s
include lobster, king crab and live Canadian geoduck. The restaurant also offers a menu of grilled skewers and side dishes. Nuggets of Mongolian lamb, gamey and richly spiced with cumin, were unleashed from a metal rod right at our table; the presentation will be familiar to any fan of Brazilian barbecue. And chewy scallion pancakes were perfectly constructed of dense but flaky layers, although I would have preferred a golden crust to their pale exterior. It’s also worth nothing that the service was exceptional. A manager explained the concept in a way that was clear, concise and never condescending. Servers stationed near the open kitchen made small talk with guests while waiting on food. For groups that lingered to chat at their tables, pots were promptly refilled with broth. In keeping with Asian tradition, the dessert selection is limited. One noteworthy option for the adventurous eater is the durian pie. The tropical fruit, which is commonly banned from hotels and public transportation in Southeast Asia for its ripe odor, is an acquired taste — you could fairly describe it as a mix of moldy onions and hot garbage in custard form. However, it’s achieved a cult status among those with thrill-seeking (or olfactory-impaired) palates. With an individual induction burner at each place setting and its automated parade of ingredients, Chubby Cattle is a contemporary take on a millennia-old tradition. But the upgrade is a trade-off. The “have it your way” philosophy of the restaurant replaces the very essence of hot pot cooking: sharing. A communal meal is a beautiful thing, much to the chagrin of germophobes and puritanical eaters. However, the benefit of Chubby Cattle’s particular arrangement is that each person at the table can order a different flavored broth and swap bites and slurps, giving the group more bang for their buck. That translates into a lot of reaching, plate-passing and careful timing, but it’s a social hack that maintains the meal’s traditional spirit. And with such a compelling range of flavors and textures rolling right before your eyes, sharing creates a culinary experience that surpasses the hot pot ritual’s original form.
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Lift
A simple drinking guide for complicated times
YOUR
Spirits PHOTOGRAPHY
BAR FOOD: Sabin Orr
DRINKS AND BARS: Christopher Smith & Brent Holmes
Sure, organic artisanal beaker concoctions with 27 ingredients are fun, but sometimes you want to keep your drinking simple, with a classic cocktail, fine wine or hearty beer. We enlisted three quaffing connoisseurs to share their favorite spots with just that in mind. Raise your glass to these mainstay treasures and unfussy pleasures.
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back bars and tops from Old Country pubs makes sense. It’s even more fun in Rí Rá’s Whiskey Bar, done up in ’70s den chic, where it seems like a little kid named Seamus should be watching Benny Hill in the corner. The Shoppes at Mandalay Place, 702-632-7771, rira.com
LA COMIDA: TEQUILA
La Comida
Spirits Las Vegas has a fiercely staked reputation to uphold as all things to all lushes. From the high-rollers chasing stratospherically priced cognac to the dirty-tap Schlitz-suckers, the well-developed booze-industrial complex here has to cater to every whim, fancy, price point and fad. The upshot to this — and to the craft cocktail revolution that has grown up with it — is we have at our disposal a collective liquor cabinet that stands up to any drinking city on the planet. With as many talented bartenders as we have in this burg, what sometimes gets obscured is how much knowledge and craft there is around the base spirits that go into their drinks. When you’re ready to strip down to the basics and drink like a Mad Men exec with no ice and only precious minutes before a client meeting, these are the places to tour the exotic and fascinating world of booze. Jason Scavone
FRANKIE’S TIKI ROOM: RUM
CASA FUENTE: BOURBONS AND RYES
If Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber created a paradise of their own rum-soaked design with a touch of punk-fed insouciance, it would look like Frankie’s Tiki Room. It is Rumvana. Elysirum. The Happy Rumming Grounds. What we’re trying to say is this is unequivocally the best rum bar in town, if you couldn’t tell. (They boast 170 rums.) If you’re on the hunt for rums strange and exotic, you can do no better than look here. A personal favorite: 1 Barrel Rum fromBelize. A bartender’s pronouncement, “You’ll want to pour this on your pancakes,” isn’t hyperbole. It’s rich and dark and sweet and packs way more of a buzz than Mrs. Butterworth’s. 1712 W. Charleston Ave., 702-385-3110, frankiestikiroom.com
Cigars and whiskey go together like whiskey and more whiskey: perfectly. This Forum Shops cigar lounge kicks a Cubano-in-Miami vibe, but it’s the mash bill that really carries the day. The Scotch selection is impressive in its own right, but when it comes to bourbons, ryes and other non-British Isles whiskies, Casa Fuente regularly checks in with off-the-beaten-path gems. Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, 702-731-5051, casafuente.com
RÍ RÁ: IRISH WHISKEY Irish whiskey may not have the old-money sophisticate charm or big-ticket brand recognition of Scotch, but the Irish have been pumping this stuff out for the better part of 400 years, at least under royal license. Taking in a slice of this craft in a spot with reclaimed
The stained glass behind the bar at La Comida makes you feel reverential, like you’re drinking in church. Tequila church. Which, as churches go, is way more fun than Sunday service with a bunch of Methodists. The metal bartop gives it an industrial vibe and faces you away from the restaurant and toward more tequila — 104, to be exact. Worship at its best. 100 Sixth St., 702-463-9900, lacomidalv.com
SAGE: ABSINTHE The Platonic ideal of places to drink absinthe is a 19th-century sidewalk café in some middle European metropolis, but an ultramodern haute cuisine palace isn’t a bad second choice to dance with the green fairy. Especially one that offers a handy flavor chart to guide your absinthe choices, with three preparations: classic, the Fire and Ice (their name for the Sochi method that involves pouring fire from a glass), and the Slipstream, a sort of absinthe lava lamp/sippy cup hybrid. I recommend the La Clandes-
CROWDED BAR TACTICS 101: Know your drink order. Most bartenders, even in fancy boozeatoriums, make money on volume. Nothing wrenches their rhythm more than an amateur who waits patiently to be served, only to have no idea what he wants when his turn comes.
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tine absinthe, classic prep with a cold-water fountain drip, no sugar. It goes lighter on the anise, which makes it perfect for you weenies who pick black jellybeans out of your Easter baskets. But it also has a distinct dry, honey finish with some nice floral tones up front. Aria, 866-3597757, aria.com
Artichoke Crab Dip AT T H E R A P Y
Now that the Mojave Desert weather is getting a bit crisp in the evenings, it’s the perfect season for something warm and filling at the bar. The perfect prescription: artichoke and crab dip at Therapy. Pulverized artichoke hearts and lumps of blue crab are united with melty Parmesan cheese in ramekins. Blue corn tortillas for dipping and scooping give the snack some Southwestern street cred. GT 518 E. Fremont St., 702-912-1622, therapylv.com
CARNEVINO: AMARI Mario Batali is intensely dedicated to the authenticity of his elevated peasant Italian tables, so bringing in a good old-fashioned amaro cart, boasting 20 of the Italian liqueurs, is the cherry-soaked-in-somany-herbs on top of the sundae. If there’s any place in town that needs a robust
selection of digestifs, it’s this steak palace where they also wheel out the bone-in rib eye on a cart. (Everything seems 20 percent more delicious coming from a cart.) Recommendation: Amaro Sfumato comes straight outta
Trentino, an example of the rabarbaro style of amaro. It’s a rhubarb-flavored amaro, with a pleasingly bright vegetable taste to go with a super smoky, almost charcoal character. Palazzo, 702-7894141, carnevino.com
HERBS & RYE: GIN Classic cocktails expertly prepared is enough of a selling point. Even better, that focus on the classics makes bartenders’ fave Herbs & Rye the de facto home of gin in Las Vegas (they boast
THIRST AND FOREMOST
When I just can’t decide, these are my go-to spirits by Jason Scavone
KAVALAN SHERRY CASK STRENGTH AT CASA FUENTE
BELUGA GOLD LINE NOBLE AT RED SQUARE
The private barrel of this Taiwanese import is unique to North America, and well worth the pilgrimage. The sherry cask waves its magic wand over the whiskey, granting it dark, rich woodiness and dark fruit tones that can cut through any fog, be it crushing hangover, long day at the office or thick cigar haze.
Beluga Gold Line Noble is infused with honey, vanilla, milk thistle and oat extract. So if you’re tired of vodkas that just don’t have enough thistle, your prayers have been answered.
52), considering our forefathers were wise enough to use gin, whiskey, and not much else in their bartending. Filling out Herbs’ encyclopedic cocktail menu are gin-fueled classics such as The Vesper, the Last Word, and the Corpse Reviver #2. 3713 W. Sahara Ave., 702-982-8036, herbsandrye.com
LAS VEGAS DISTILLERY: BOURBON
KNAPPOGUE CASTLE AT RÍ RÁ
AVIATION GIN AT HERBS & RYE
CASA NOBLE ANEJO AT LA COMIDA
Knappogue Castle is a little indie distillery in County Clare, but its 16-year can more than hang with any top name’s more prestigious offerings. The Castle is light with an oaky, chocolatey sweetness that makes it approachable to even novice Irish whiskey drinkers.
Portland’s Aviation gin isn’t the juniper bomb you typically run into. It’s an orange-forward gin with balanced botanicals that even out the juniper and make it supremely sippable. It might be the next big thing in gin, and it’s already a default choice at Herbs & Rye.
Casa Noble anejo is 100 percent organic which, yeah, healthy. Noble ages in French oak, lending its tequilas a caramel characteristic that may seem at odds with the whole healthy thing, but trust us. It’s completely healthy.
A bedrock of Henderson’s burgeoning Artisan Booze District, the Las Vegas Distillery gave us the first in-state bourbon of the modern era, and for that, we should be forever grateful. The tasting room is open to the public as part of regularly scheduled tours, right out on the distilling floor. As of October 1, the distillery added a side-room bar open Fridays and Saturdays, for maximum exposure to straight-from-thesource hooch. Affable owner George Racz says that the Nevada 150 bourbon is his baby, and the Grandma’s Apple Pie moonshine is the
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Whisky Attic
crowd-pleaser. But it’s his five-year anniversary line of 12 whiskeys for 2016 that are the hot new jam. That includes the kamut whiskey, a light, hot tipple with touches of straw and a plum character that’s unlike any other whiskey we can place. Plus, kamut is an ancient grain out of Asia, so, you know, it’s healthy. 7330 Eastgate Road #100, Henderson, 702-629-7534, lasvegasdistillery.com
Scotch Olives
AT L I B E R T I N E S O C I A L
RED SQUARE: VODKA You can’t say they’re not on point. Red Square brings just a hint of foreboding Siberia to its vodka operation with an icetop bar, ensuring your water of life stays plenty chilly. (Though to really capture the full Russian experience, there should be TVs playing insane dash cam footage at all times.) But the real star is the Vodka Vault, which involves
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A good bar bite provides good balance to a tasty cocktail, so Chef Shawn McClain put an imaginative twist on a classic Scottish pub food: the Scotch Olive. A big, juicy Castelvetrano olive stuffed with feta cheese, wrapped in Merguez lamb sausage, breaded and fried — a perfect complement for Tony Abou-Ganim’s masterpieces of modern mixology. MW Mandalay Bay, 702-632-7200
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furs. OK, fake fur. But still. Mandalay Bay, 702-632-7407, redsquarelasvegas.com
WHISKY ATTIC: SCOTCH Much like Pizza Hut and Shake Shack, any business named for a location and the thing they sell tells you exactly what you’re getting. And unlike Pizza Hut, the Whiskey Attic won’t leave you full of regret and a serious disappointment in yourself. By appointment only, the Attic is a learning environment more than a social one. And what better to learn about than their 3,800 different whiskeys on hand, including 1,800 scotches. Open the door to the Attic and gaze on its shelves and you’ll weep like Alexander, for there are no more whiskies left to conquer. Personal favorite: Samaroli Evolution 2011 Vintage. Why settle for one boring 12-year-old Scotch when you can get 26 different vintages spanning more than 30 years in one bottle? This Samaroli covers everything from 1957 Mortlach to 1989 Bowmore. You can really taste the ’70s. Tastes like Carter-era malaise and peat. 4780 W. Harmon Ave. #12, 702-217-6794, whiskyattic.com
Ferraro’s
Wine Las Vegas isn’t really a wine bar sort of town. Wine bars generally require (and promote) a certain level of contemplative thought, and Las Vegas is usually about as contemplative as a UFC cage match. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t fabulous places to sample some outstanding wines; it just means you have to go to some of our finer restaurants to find them. Below are my 12 favorite sipping venues, places where our town’s great sommeliers take enormous pride in pouring vintages from around the globe — and where you can sip, savor and contemplate to your palate’s content. John Curtas
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ESTIATORIO MILOS Greek wines may be unpronounceable, but they’re also delicious. They’re also substantially underpriced compared to similar seafood-friendly wines from France and Italy. Don’t even try to master the odd lisps and tongue rolls of Assyrtiko, Moshofilero or Mavrodaphne. Just point and smile, or ask the staff for help. (I promise they won’t make fun of you.) Anyone who orders anything but Greek wines with Estiatorio Milos’ seafood should be sentenced to a year of drinking nothing but Harvey Wallbangers. The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, 702-698-7930, milos.ca
RESTAURANT GUY SAVOY The list is as thick as a dictionary and, at first blush, not for the faint
of heart or parsimonious of purse. But look closely, and you’ll find a surprising number of bargains for less than $100. Or ask sommelier Phil Park and he will happily point them out to you. The champagne bar is where you’ll find serious oenophiles perusing the list a full half-hour before their reservation — just like they do in France. Caesars Palace, 702-731-7286, caesars.com
CHADA STREET/CHADA THAI These two sister restaurants are a few miles apart, but connected by a love of white wines that owner Bank Atcharawan has successfully brought to Chinatown. Both lists are deep in rieslings and chardonnays, and the Champagne selection at Chada Street puts most Strip
Lobster Tostadas AT OT H E R M A M A
There are no standard refried bean tostadas at Other Mama, the wildly popular (and excellent) seafood-focused bar/restaurant on the west side. Rather, the inventive kitchen takes a pair of toasted corn mini-tortillas and loads them up with mounds of sweet lobster meat crowned with generous portions of avocado. GT 3655 S. Durango Road #6, 702-463-8382, othermamalv.com
lists to shame — at decidedly gentler prices. Not for nothing does every sommelier in Las Vegas treat both of these venues like their personal after-hours club. Chada Street: 3839 Spring Mountain Road, 702-579-0207, chadastreet.com; Chada Thai: 3400 S. Jones Blvd., 702-6411345, chadavegas.com
MARCHÉ BACCHUS A pinot noir wall, lakeside dining and the gentlest markups in town ($10 over retail) make Marché Bacchus a must-stop on any wine lover’s tour of Vegas. Jeff and Rhonda Wyatt are always there to help you choose
a glass or a case of whatever mainstream cab or offbeat syrah suits your fancy. Or do what I do: just stick with Burgundy and go nuts. 2620 Regatta Drive #106, 702-804-8008, marchebacchus.com
parse the Barbarescos from the Barolos. Come here for one of the greatest Italian lists in America at one of our finest Italian restaurants. 4480 Paradise Road, 702-364-5300, ferraroslasvegas.com
FERRARO’S ITALIAN RESTAURANT AND WINE BAR
BAZAAR MEAT
What I love about Italian wines is what I love about Italians and Italian food — they are friendly, passionate, fiercely regional and perplexing in a good way. Don’t know your Montelcinos from your Montepulcianos? No problemo: Gino Ferraro is there to help you
I don’t understand Spanish wine any more than I understand how José Andrés can have so much energy and so many great restaurants. But the next best thing to knowing a lot about a country’s wines is knowing a sommelier who is eager to teach you. Chloe Helfand is that sommelier in Las Ve-
CROWDED BAR TACTICS 101: Never yell at the bartender. Sure, it’s tempting. The bar is packed, the band is loud, and you’re a beer or two behind everyone else. But yelling at the bartender is a surefire way to get ignored. For a loooooong time. O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6
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Suckling Pig Sandwich
shoulder-deep in sake, Alsatian whites and Austrian Grüner Veltliners — all of which match, in surprising ways, Saipan Chutima’s fierce and fiery country Thai cooking. This is where you’ll find almost every wine professional in town on their day off, usually at a table groaning with riesling bottles. 953 E. Sahara Ave. #A5, 702735-3033, lotusof siamlv.com
AT B A Z A A R M E AT
Exclusive to their Bar Centro menu, the much-celebrated Conchinillo — slow roasted suckling pig — gets a second life as the suckling pig sandwich. The crispy skin and tender, sweet meat, roasted for hours in their big Josper ovens, is complemented by caramelized onions, a unique honey mustard sauce, on pan de cristal. MW SLS Las Vegas, 702-761-7610
SAGE gas, and she’s always there with a smile and a lip-smacking wine you don’t know, made with a grape you’ve never heard of. Which is one of the reasons we love sommeliers — and Chloe. SLS Las Vegas, 702-761-7610, slslasvegas.com
LA CAVE Mark Hefter’s wine program is a lot like Mark Hefter: fun, interesting, intelligent, and all over the map. Hefter has poured wine everywhere from Le Cirque 2000 in New York to Spago and Circo in Las Vegas, and needless to say, the man knows his grapes. With more than 50 wines by the glass, he can dazzle anyone from the novice drinker to the dedicated oenophile. But what we love about his list is its eclecticism. Here is where you can sample the world’s most interesting wines at very friendly price points. Curious about those orange and pink wines that are all the rage these days? This
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is the place to start. Wynn Las Vegas, 702-770-7375, lacavelv.com
CARNEVINO If your measure of a great wine bar is the number of by-the-glass options offered, look elsewhere. If you rate your wine-tasting by quality — of the breadth and depth of the list,
the bar snacks, the staff, and the mixology (should you stray into creative-booze territory) — then Carnevino is your place. The list is conveniently located inside the (massive) menu, and the markups are not for the timid. But the excellence of everything — from the steaks to the pastas to the Super-Tuscan
verticals — will take your breath away. The Palazzo, 702-789-4141, carnevino.com
LOTUS OF SIAM Robert Parker (yeah, that Robert Parker) calls Lotus’s wine card the greatest German wine list in America, and we have no reason to argue with him. It’s also
The trouble with Sage is the food is so good sometimes you forget about the wine, and the wine list is so good sometimes you forget about the food. I like California pinot noir and chardonnay with Shawn McClain’s innovative fare, but the list covers the world in all areas of consequence. Such choices here are a happy conundrum to have,
THIRST AND FOREMOST
When I just can’t decide, these are my go-to wines by John Curtas
THANISCH RIESLING AT LOTUS OF SIAM
Leave it to Lotus to figure out that German white wines make the perfect marriage with the light-upyour-life spices of northern Thai cooking.
VOLNAY (FRENCH BURGUNDY) AT MARCHÉ BACCHUS
It’s not cheap, but one of the few Burgundies you can afford that will convince you what all the shouting is about.
ASSYRTIKO AT ESTIATORIO MILOS
A volcanic wine from the shores and slopes of Santorini, this racy white pairs perfectly with any fish the mongers at Milos can throw at you.
AGLIANICO AT FERRARO’S
This hard-tofind wine from southeastern Italy comes from black grapes full of dark acidity and firm tannins. I can’t think of a better match with Ferraro’s deservedly world-famous osso buco.
PIERRE PETERS CHAMPAGNE AT CHADA STREET
Freshness, minerality and lightness define the Pierre Peters style, and Chada Street’s selection of new wave labels (at remarkably soft prices) will define your bubbly drinking once you take your first nose-tickling sip.
whether you’re dining or hanging out in the stunning bar. Aria, 702590-9520, aria.com
HEARTHSTONE Great wine drinking in the ’burbs is harder to find than a corner without a fast food franchise. Hearthstone deserves props for actually having a wine program, and for a list that breaks down according to varietal character — “Big Reds,” “Crisp, Clean & Lean,” “Voluptuous But Light,” etc. The by-the-glass selection is solid, but what really gets our attention is the half-off Monday night specials, which allows for some serious drinking of some serious bottles. That discount only applies to bottles under a Benjamin, but if you’ve got the coin, $2,500 for a bottle of 2005 DRC Echezeaux or $2,800 for some Screaming Eagle is still a flat-out steal. Red Rock Casino Resort Spa, 702-797-7344, hearth stonelv.com
BIN 702 Downtown Las Vegas is so wine-challenged it makes Summerlin look like Napa Valley. Amid all the bars and hipster hangouts, though, this teeny tiny space in Container Park holds forth with a small selection of interesting reds and whites from around the globe — most in the $30-$60 range. Wine snobs will be underwhelmed, but for those looking for a break from craft cocktails and exotic coffees, Bin 702 is an oasis. Downtown Container Park, 702-826-2702
Pub 365
PUB 365
Beer Beer and Las Vegas have been hitched together since this was a dusty railroad town with not much more than a few gambling saloons and brothels open to welcome thirsty visitors. And while the city grew, our beer choices didn’t: For much of recent history, the selection was limited to cheap major-label brewery swill proffered in cheapo
The newest craft brew port of call is in a perhaps unlikely location: Tuscany Suites & Resort, just east of the Strip. True to the moniker, you can quaff a new beer every day of the year without repeating a draft. Be sure to pry open the handmade wooden binders listing rare, even arcane, varietals on hand. The fascinating atlas will make your inner beer snob giddy. 255 E. Flamingo Road, 702-893-8933, tuscanylv.com
bucket-o-bottles promotions. Meanwhile,
PUBLIC SCHOOL 702
other major cities across western Ameri-
This Southern California microchain has filled an upper deck location of Downtown Summerlin with fun décor based on schoolhouses of yesteryear — think flash cards, chalkboards, composition notebooks.
ca were enjoying a craft beer golden age. Well, Vegas is finally catching up. Pints are now being filled with high-quality drafts — many imported, yes, but many now locally brewed, too. It’s a great time to roll out a barrel. Greg Thilmont
There’s also plenty of good beer to be studied glass by glass. A recent favorite find of mine is a delicious pale ale aged in Petrus wine barrels from Belgium’s De Brabandere brewery: effervescent excellence that more than makes the grade. 1850 Festival Plaza Drive, 702-749-3007, psontap.com
CRAFTHAUS This is one of the microbreweries that finally launched Las Vegas into the fraternity of brewing burgs such as Denver, San Diego, Seattle, and even our prim northern neighbor, Salt Lake City. Advanced yeast techniques make for libations like the Glitter Bomb, a sourstyle beer glistening with culinary-grade sparkles. It looks like you’re drinking the
CROWDED BAR TACTICS 101: Keep it simple. It’s much simpler to loudly say “JACK & COKE” and hold up three fingers than to try to order a Gimlet, an Old Fashioned, and a Skinny Pirate. Mostly applies to nightclubs and loud dive bars. O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6
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evil wizard’s swirling seeing-stone from the Lord of the Rings. (And you’ll drink it in a colorful tasting room with Dave Grohl pillows, cuckoo clocks and sippy birds.) Another recommendation: The Evocation saison. It brought the Belgian sour to Las Vegas in the most noteworthy way. 7350 Eastgate Road, 702-462-5934, crafthausbrewery.com
BAD BEAT BREWING As the front-facing beermaker of the Artisan Booze District on Eastgate Road (GPS it for sure), Bad Beat greets you with a dozen or so beers brewed on site. The schtick is super-Vegas, from the casino-chip bottle labels to the beer names themselves, which include the Bluffing Isn’t Weisse, the Ante Up Amber and, one of my favorites, The Ringer, a delectable and refreshing pilsner. 7380 Eastgate Road, 702-463-4199, bad beatbrewing.com
VELVETEEN RABBIT It’s no secret that Velveteen Rabbit is
among Las Vegas’ leading bars for inventive mixology. But don’t overlook their excellent beer selection: Behind the bar, a dozen gleaming golden mannequin hands are taps that dispense a rotating roster of fizzy craft beers. Plus, the bartenders occasionally whip up beer-based cocktails that are tasty and sophisticated. 1218 S. Main St., 702-685-9645, velveteenrabbitlv.com
REBAR While relatively new, ReBAR is totally Vegas. Not only is it a bar, it’s also a kitsch-filled, antique boutique in the Arts District. Need a Smokey and the Bandit poster lacquered to a rustic wood frame or a gigantic Bohemian beer stein? This is your place. On Fridays, local brews such as Joseph James American Flyer are a dollar off during happy hour — a worthy way to celebrate Vegas’ liquid culture. 1225 S. Main St., 702-3492283, rebarlv.com
BEERHAUS Perched at a prime
location in the newly opened Park between New York-New York and T-Mobile Arena, BeerHaus is a chill spot where locals can mix with our 42 million visitors over a few beevos. And what a selection there is, from exotic heavies such as the Moody Tongue Chocolate Churro Baltic porter to Golden Road Brewing’s fruity, Bavarian-style hefeweizen. Burn off the carbs with a spirited match of Ping-Pong or other bar games. 3782 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-692-2337, theparkvegas.com
KHOURY’S FINE WINE & SPIRITS Welcome to Southern Nevada’s temple of beers. You’d never know driving by that a strip mall in Henderson could hold hundreds upon hundreds of bottles and cans of fermented treasures from microbreweries across the world. Stop in for educational events, plus beer release celebrations. There’s a snug but comfortable bar area, too, where you can sample the
A BITE
AT THE BAR
Skins & Balls
AT S P O R T I N G L I F E
One of the great benedictions of being six cocktails past the point of reason is that it’s one of the few times in life that blank-faced indecision is flatly, if impatiently, tolerated. It’s savvy, then, to introduce two-in-ones of bar food munchables, like the Skins & Balls at Sporting Life. Venerable potato skins are joined by their hipper, European cousin: croquettes of chicken and smoked gouda. Go ahead. Slather the sour cream-based dipping sauce on everything. It’s all you can handle right now anyway. JS 7770 S. Jones Blvd., 702-331-4647, sportinglifebar.com
drafts on rotation. 9915 S. Eastern Ave. #110, 702-435-9463, khourysfinewine.com
ACES & ALES This westside mainstay brings in crowds daily for its wide-ranging menu of beers, 50 of which are served by a high-tech DigitalPour system, complete with electronic display boards. Bring your friends: Aces & Ales is a place for group activities, from college football showdowns to Geeks Who Drink
throwdowns. There’s an eastside location, too. West: 2801 N. Tenaya Way, 702-638-2337; east: 3740 S. Nellis Blvd., 702-436-7600, acesandales.com
BORN AND RAISED A gem of southwestern Las Vegas, Born and Raised takes the neighborhood sports bar concept to a higher level than your average local’s joint. While it doesn’t feature an extensive roster of beers, it does serve up
CROWDED BAR TACTICS 101: Spot someone you’d like to chat up? The protocol has changed: Point out the person to the bartender and let them know you’d like to buy them a drink. They’ll sort the details for you, safely. Or let you down, easy. (James P. Reza)
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quality pints in stylish yet casual surroundings. I try to snag the mod “Egg” chair when I visit. Henderson has a B&R outpost, as well. 7260 S. Cimarron Road, 702-685-0258; Henderson: 10050 S. Eastern Ave., 702685-0258, bornand raisedlv.com
MONEY PLAYS In a town with a dive bar in every strip mall, Money Plays would be just another slot tavern if not for its impressive list of craft beers (and its long-running open mic music night Thursdays). Money Plays may not boast warehouse-chic design and a bearded cicerone, but it’s got quality where it counts, with 24 drafts on tap and a virtual encyclopedia of bottled beer selections. One of my favorites is the Silly Sour from Belgium — as pleasantly surprising as this seemingly nondescript bar. 4755 W. Flamingo Road, 702-368-1828, moneyplayslv.com
LOVELADY BREWING From the outside, Lovelady Brewing looks like a vintage piece of Art Deco architecture on Henderson’s historic Water Street. In fact, it’s a brand new construction that admirably kept in mind the region’s mid-century aesthetic. Inside, however, is a rustic-industrial space where adventure and innovation are on tap, whether you’re settling into the potent HopAtomic double IPA, the chocolatey Café Femenino porter or the piquant Dapper Dandy Sour. 20 S. Water St., 702-857-8469, loveladybrewing.com
Velveteen Rabbit
digs represent not just an investment in the future of DTLV, but a continued commitment to the craft of making great beer. My favorite: the light and refreshing Tenaya Pilsner. 831 W. Bonanza Road, 702-362-7335, tenayacreek.com
TACOS & BEER What’s a list of beer joints without some South of the Border flair? Tacos & Beer features a street art-meets-Dia de los Muertos ambiance. The beer list is no less playful. At the lighter end, CraftHaus’s
Single Minded Belgian Blonde pairs well with the menu’s spicy fare, while Wet Dream Brown Ale from Brooklyn’s Evil Twin Brewing pops with citrus and spice. 3900 Paradise Road, 702-675-7572, tacosandbeerlas vegas.com
THIRST AND FOREMOST
When I just can’t decide, these are my go-to beers by Greg Thilmont
TENAYA CREEK BREWERY Long before the brewpub craze, Tenaya Creek was quietly serving up signature suds. By the time there was a craft beer on tap at every suburban slot tavern, Tenaya Creek had established itself as a veteran in the Vegas brewing scene. But it wasn’t content with mere reliable-mainstay status. In the past two years, Tenaya Creek greatly improved the quality of its beer and made a major move Downtown. Its new
MAMA’S LITTLE YELLA PILS AT PUBLIC SCHOOL 702
A pint of Oskar Blues’ Mama’s Little Yella Pils is the perfect wet-yourwhistle to match the view on Public School 702’s patio. It has original Czech-style charm — crisp but also just enough Saaz hops to give it a bit of floral bite. It’s light and definitely quaffable without being a little baby beer.
GENESSE LAGER AT VELVETEEN RABBIT
Genesse lager is the taste of college. It’s prototypical beevo — sixrow barley malt, corn grits and Yakima Valley hops turned into thirstquencher. Not too mouth-puckering, but not weak and watery, either. And at $3 a pour, it’s perfect fuel for Arts District wanderings and First Friday meanderings.
MODERN TIMES UNIVERSAL FRIEND AT KHOURY’S FINE SPIRITS
Amid the collection of ales, pilsners, porters and other varietals at Khoury’s Fine Spirits is Universal Friend, a saisonstyle beer. That’s a pale ale in a slightly sour style. It’s infused with wine must in the brewing process, imparting a slightly jammy, grapey sweetness with a hint of clove.
KRONENBOURG 1664 BLANC AT BORN AND RAISED
9TH ISLAND PINEAPPLE SOUR AT LOVELADY
Sometimes, it’s good to gulp some Gallic refreshment of the beery type, and Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc is a great go-to. Made in the wheat-beer style, it’s a bit cloudy to the eye and has a grassy, vaguely fruity aroma with coriander and citrus tones.
If the notion of pineapple in beer brings visions of a foamy piña colada concoction to mind, rest easy. The 9th Island Pineapple Sour at Lovelady Brewing isn’t overpowering. It’s a sour variety with just a hint of Hawaiian-inspired flavor. It’s also relatively light on alcohol, making for a smooth sip. O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6
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y r r a H From a hardscrabble childhood in Searchlight to the pinnacle of American power, Harry Reid has lived an epic American life. Now, as Nevada’s most legendary political career — and, at times, its most gaffe-prone, controversial and conservative-enraging — draws to a close, we look at some of the most significant moments in the life of Nevada’s essential politician Edited by Steve Sebelius
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the big one
Uphill all the way It took all of Harry Reid’s legislative skills to shepherd the Affordable Care Act to reality By Jon Ralston
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hey should have called it Reidcare. Beyond all the amendments he slipped into bills or the measures he entombed through parliamentary legerdemain, beyond his perennial stalling of Yucca Mountain, Harry Reid’s greatest legislative miracle may be passing President Barack Obama’s signature achievement in March 2010. Remember what happened during that time, the same period during which Reid miraculously forced the stimulus package through Congress. The Affordable Care Act was introduced in September 2009, and Reid understood what he had warned the president about from Day One: No Republicans would come along. So the majority leader knew he had no margin for error. I did a lot of reporting on this for a piece I penned last year, and what I found was that Reid did what he does best — learning what each member needed to be happy. As his communications chief Adam Jentleson told me, “He figures out what matters to people. Sometimes he will get to the person that a member listens to.” Reid essentially had told the White House, I got this, and the president trusted him enough to make the deal. Reid had to navigate stormy waters after Ted Kennedy died on August 25 (his seat was temporarily filled by Democrat Paul Kirk), but he continued to steer the Obamacare ship toward the 60 votes needed to head off a GOP filibuster. Reid and the White House clashed during this time, as some at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. questioned his strategy of allowing Finance Chairman Max Baucus so much free rein. Unlike Reid, Baucus, a Democrat, thought he could bring some Republicans along. The majority leader let him find out for himself that he was wrong. Reid then had one last play to get his last two votes from holdouts Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. In a move that encapsulates Harry Reid’s career, showing he will do almost anything to achieve his goal, he resorted to what amounted to legalized bribery. Reid managed to slip in provisions giving hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds to the home states of Nelson and Landrieu, the so-called “Cornhusker Kickback” and “Louisiana Purchase,” respectively. (Nelson would later lose his gift in reconciliation with the House, but Reid already had se-
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cured his vote when it mattered.) Reid also ensured independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman would vote for the final package by scuttling any talk of a public option in the Affordable Care Act. And on Christmas Eve 2009, the Senate passed the measure by 60-39, sending it to the House, where the Democrats then dominated. Reid’s masterpiece almost fell apart when Scott Brown upset Martha Coakley to take Kennedy’s seat in a special election in January 2010, erasing the filibuster-proof majority. But the House agreed to pass the identical Senate bill and make any changes in a subsequent legislation, so the upper house would not have to vote again on a revised version of the bill. If that had not happened, even Harry Reid probably could not have obtained the one Republican vote he would have needed to pass health-care reform. At least I don’t think so. Reid was content to let the president bask in the limelight in March 2010, when he
Plugged into the power grid: Under the gaze of Mark Twain, Senator Harry Reid works the phones from his Capitol Hill office, top; getting POTUS face-time, above; and sharing a moment with mentor Mike O’Callaghan, top right.
signed the still-controversial bill that would come to bear his name. But even President Obama knows that the proper nickname of the Affordable Care Act should be Reidcare.
getting started
With a little help from his friend It took a figure almost as large as Harry Reid to recognize and nurture the young man’s potential By Michael Green
O f f i c e : A P P h o t o / S u sa n W a l s h ; o b a m a : A P P h o t o /A l e x B r a n d o n ; No r t h Las V e g as L i b r a r y c o l l e c t i o n / UNLV L i b r a r i e s S p e c i a l Co l l e c t i o n s
H
arry Reid didn’t meet the man who would change his political life until his senior year at Basic High School in Henderson. Mike O’Callaghan, the gruff Irishman who’d moved there from Idaho to teach social studies, would leave an indelible impression on Nevada’s political landscape himself. He “would become my teacher and my best friend,” Reid said of O’Callaghan in his book The Good Fight (from which all the quotations in this account are drawn, unless otherwise noted). Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that without O’Callaghan, the chances are good that nobody would be talking about the importance of Harry Reid on the eve of his retirement from Nevada’s most remarkable political career. O’Callaghan made an impression fast. The victim of Korean War mortar fire, he had an artificial leg that didn’t seem to slow him down a bit. O’Callaghan got mad at a bully who picked on some of the smaller kids at Basic, and invited the student to the Boys Club for a boxing match. According to Reid, “The brand-new teacher with one leg just coldcocked him. ... Nobody messed with (O’Callaghan). And when he was around, nobody messed with the little guy, either. One of the many things he taught me was that the little guy was worth fighting for.” Reid literally believed O’Callaghan was worth fighting for: The teacher became his boxing coach. After graduating from Basic, Reid headed to the College of Southern Utah, today Southern
Utah University, in Cedar City. He had to work his way through school, but he had financial help, thanks again to O’Callaghan: His teacher raised money from some Henderson businessmen to help pay Reid’s way. After Utah State, Reid planned to go to law school. O’Callaghan thought he should go to Washington, as many other young men from Nevada had done — about 50 Nevada attorneys went to law school while working under the patronage of Senator Pat McCarran, and other Nevada elected officials did much the same thing. One of those people was Rep. Walter Baring. O’Callaghan wrote to him to ask him to get a job for Reid. Baring’s reply was negative, and spelled the would-be law student’s name wrong. O’Callaghan’s legendary temper knew few limitations and made no exception for elected officials; O’Callaghan called Baring, and chewed him out. Reid headed off to George Washington University to study law, with a job as a Capitol Hill policeman. Reid returned to Nevada in September 1963, before he finished his degree, having petitioned to take the bar exam early. “Mike O’Callaghan met me at the airport in Reno,” Reid recalled. “In his hand was a $50 bill, a denomination of money I’d never seen before. It helped pay for my trip, and it allowed me to take the bar exam,” which Reid passed. Just as O’Callaghan had entered politics, so did Reid. He won election to the assembly in 1968. Two years later, O’Callaghan decided to run for governor and upset the favored candidates in the primary and general elections. Reid ran for lieutenant governor and won. “What an adventure it would be to serve side by side with Big Mike,” Reid said. Big Mike involved Reid in everything. “I had two full-time jobs, being lieutenant governor and being a lawyer. And Mike would call at all times of the day and night,” Reid said. “It was because of him that I learned to use a phone in pitch darkness.” O’Callaghan had a plan for their future. In 1974, Senator Alan Bible was retiring. O’Callaghan thought about running, with Reid moving up to run for governor. Then O’Callaghan decided against trying to go to Washington but told Reid, “Run for re-election, and I’ll resign before my term is over, and you’ll become governor.” Instead, Reid ran to succeed Bible. Former Governor Paul Laxalt emerged from his brief political retirement, but it should have been hopeless for the Republican: Watergate and Richard Nixon had made the GOP damaged goods. In his book The Good Fight, Reid said, “My hot young pollster, Pat Caddell, told me in early October, ‘It’s impossible for you to
lose.’ I showed him.” In one of the most memorable gaffes in Nevada political history, Reid questioned the ethics of the Laxalt family’s finances, prompting Laxalt to point out his sister was a nun who had taken a vow of poverty. That moment, combined with conservative Northern Nevadans who preferred Laxalt, cost Reid the election by 611 votes, and set a precedent for close wins and losses that would follow Reid for a good bit of his political life. Then Reid compounded his mistake. He held a press conference blaming the Northern Nevada media for his defeat, which earned him bad press and did nothing to help his future plans. In the book The First 100, Reid recalled, “I was young, impetuous, and I had never lost anything. I might as well have blamed (former Soviet premier) Nikita Khrushchev. It was just a sign of my immaturity. But it was one of the most character-building experiences of my life.” He ran for mayor of Las Vegas, losing to Clark County Commissioner Bill Briare. “I woke the day after the mayoral election a 35-year-old has-been. I assumed that I was finished with political office.” Reid had been a successful lawyer, and remained one. But his political fall had been rapid and striking. Then, “as had been the case so often in my life, Governor O’Callaghan extended a hand to me.” As Ralph Denton, a fellow Democrat who knew both of them, put it in his book A Liberal Conscience, “Mike didn’t give up on him. Mike knew what Harry was.” O’Callaghan appointed Reid to chair the Nevada Gaming Commission in 1977. That position, already important, was about to become a hot seat. The FBI, the Justice Department and Nevada gaming agents were digging deeper into organized crime. Reid faced down Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and his allies at the Stardust and Fremont hotels. As commission chair, he took on the mob operators of other local hotels, including the Tropicana and the Aladdin, and approved Tony Spilotro for the Black Book, barring him from entering Nevada casinos. Battling the mob kept Reid in the public eye, refurbished his image and eliminated the “has-been” description of him politically. It wasn’t always easy: When Tropicana mob operator Joe Agosto said he had a “Cleanface in my pocket,” the FBI publicly rebutted the claim, but the allegations still pop up — “the worst time in my family’s life,” Reid called it. One day, his wife, Landra, found some wires rigged in their car to blow it up, and the bomb squad had to come to his home. Had Reid not suffered his back-to-back defeats and his circuitous route back to politics,
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he still might have become majority leader, but who can know? We do know this: At the worst political moment of Reid’s life, O’Callaghan, who died in 2004, knew Reid still had a future. Neither of them gave up.
say anything
Harry Reid’s impolitic tongue From calling President Bush a loser to apology-worthy comments about President Obama, the senator has a history of wayward words By Steve Sebelius
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Open mic: Reid is rarely afraid to offer strong opinions when he’s at the podium.
made the statement, but Sbaih has not backed off his account. (Sbaih lost a Democratic primary to a Reid-endorsed candidate.) Reid has been known to transform into a media critic on occasion, telling reporters how their concept of objectivity has robbed them of the ability to call a given situation accurately. And he’s been known to not hold back if a particular piece of journalism strikes him as unhelpful. He told this writer in 2013 that a column exonerating Rep. Joe Heck of responsibility for the failure of immigration legislation made Reid want to vomit. In fact, on the immigration issue, Reid was once in agreement with Donald Trump! In 1993, Reid — repeatedly using the phrase “illegal aliens” — disdained the concept of birthright citizenship (the idea that children born on U.S. soil are American citizens by right, even if their parents entered the country illegally). In 2006, he said a bill he’d introduced on birthright citizenship was the low point of his long career in office. For Republicans, that low point may have come in 2012, when Reid repeatedly said he’d learned from a source that Republican nominee Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes in 10 years. In 2015, asked about the charge by CNN’s Dana Bash, Reid merely shrugged and said, “He didn’t win, did he?” Reid’s flair for free speaking can be downright entertaining at times, especially as he takes to the
Senate floor to do rhetorical battle with favorite targets like the Koch Brothers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Republicans whom he thinks aren’t doing their jobs. Trump is a favorite target, too: Most recently, as criticism of Hillary Clinton’s campaign mounts for keeping her bout with pneumonia under wraps, Reid observed that the 70-yearold Trump wasn’t exactly “slim and trim.” And Reid can go for the jugular when he believes he’s justified: In 2012, speaking at his annual Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Reid accused utility NV Energy of killing members of an Indian tribe who live on a reservation close to the Reid Gardner power plant. The company recently announced it would close that plant ahead of schedule as it continues a transition to natural gas and green energy power production. No one in the room is more nervous when Reid is speaking than his staff. They constantly tap at their smartphones, preparing their colleagues in real time for the fallout of whatever the boss has just uttered. Once, while giving a speech on the Senate floor, Reid appeared to come quite close to profanity, which would definitely have been a violation of Senate decorum. He described something with which he disagreed as “a big crock of … potato soup.” It could have been worse. With Reid, it could have been much, much worse.
A P P h o t o / D e n n i s Coo k
n the twilight of his political career, many insiders remarked at how free Harry Reid had become with his words. The benefits, they say, of not having to run for another term. But they just don’t know Harry Reid. Nevada’s senior senator has a long and distinguished history of saying sometimes-outrageous things, things that might seriously damage or even ruin a lesser politician, one who never developed the reservoir of goodwill that Reid has built up with his party’s base. In 2002, Reid called President George W. Bush a “liar” (because Bush decided to move forward with the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain despite a promise to decide the issue on science). Asked about that comment in 2009, Reid was unapologetic: “I don’t know if that rhetoric is appropriate. That’s how I feel, and that’s how I felt,” Reid told then-Meet the Press host Tim Russert. In 2005, speaking to class at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Reid called Bush a “loser.” He quickly called the White House to apologize for that remark, asking Karl Rove to convey his regrets to the traveling president. In the book Game Change, journalists and authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann report Reid made a racially insensitive remark about then-Sen. Barack Obama. “He [Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘lightskinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’” the passage reads. Reid later apologized. This year, Reid allegedly told congressional hopeful Jesse Sbaih that he could not win a race for Congress because Sbaih is a Muslim. Reid and his staff vehemently denied Reid
the close call
428 votes How John Ensign became the ghost in the Reid machine By Jon Ralston
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t was the race Harry Reid believed he deserved to lose. Reid, ascending the rungs in the Club of 100 for a dozen years, faced a challenge in 1998 from an upstart two-term GOP congressman named John Ensign, a veterinarian and gaming executive who had stunned Democratic Rep. Jim Bilbray during the 1994 Gingrich Revolution. Reid, who had been in Washington since 1983, could not believe a sophomore such as Ensign would have the temerity to challenge him. After all, the senator had bided his time and glided through backrooms before calling in favors to get to the cusp of party leadership. This was no small feat for the charismatically challenged senator from a small state. And now Ensign wanted to take that away from him. And he almost did. Ensign was everything Reid was not: telegenic, personable, smooth. The congressman also ran an almost flawless campaign, portraying Reid as a tax-and-spend liberal and benefitting from a flood of newcomers as well as fallout from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Reid could barely contain his disdain for his opponent, sneering at one Summerlin forum, “What does a veterinarian know about the Constitution?” (Even then, there were Reidisms. When Ensign confronted Reid about the comment at a televised debate the following week, Reid said, among other things, “You know, I have cats and dogs. I like cats and dogs, and I like animals. And I like veterinarians.”) Reid, as ever, had left little to chance. He recruited then-Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones to run for governor against former schools superintendent, banker and Southwest Gas CEO Kenny Guinn, a quixotic venture, but one that the senator knew would energize the Democratic female base. Reid needed every little bit to go right. After a recount and questions about ballots in Washoe County, the incumbent emerged victorious — by 428 votes. The final numbers revealed perhaps the only flaw in Ensign’s campaign, but the one that cost him the contest: Ensign had essentially neglected Washoe, which was then a heavily GOP county. And Reid out-performed the registration numbers, losing the county by only 2,000 votes. That killed Ensign. After the election, Reid knew how fortunate he was to have won. He told people, in-
cluding this reporter, that he would revamp his organization and the state Democratic Party. Like Scarlett on Tara, as God was his witness, he would never let this happen again. Motivated by that near-death experience, by his next election, in 2004, Reid had brought in experienced political operatives, including his new right-hand, Rebecca Lambe, imported from Missouri. Reid would win easily in 2004 against a nonentity, conservative activist Richard Ziser. But that was just a test run for the eponymous machine that would save Reid in 2010 when the national GOP came gunning for him; and would have killed him if not for that machine, which helped hand the GOP a pistol loaded with a blank named Sharron Angle. Ensign and Reid would go on to form a productive Senate partnership after the former took Richard Bryan’s seat in 2000, but ended his career in scandal in 2011. (Indeed, Reid is often heard to say he misses Ensign in the Senate.) But what happened in 1998 stayed with Reid and helped forever change the trajectory of Nevada in cycles to come.
the final campaign
Confidence and calculation In 2010, Harry Reid’s opponents saw their best chance to unseat the majority leader — unaware that they had no chance at all By Steve Sebelius
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an up, Harry Reid!” That was the line of the night on October 14, 2010, the one and only debate between Nevada’s senior senator and Tea Party darling Sharron Angle, the woman who was destined to end Reid’s long career in the Senate. An obviously rehearsed attack line, it echoed the shouts of outrage that had begun at a Tea Party rally near Reid’s hometown of Searchlight on March 27, 2010. And whether Angle knew it or not, it was the high point of a campaign that she’d lost before it ever began.
Reid is not known for his wide margins of victory — the nickname “Landslide Harry” was ironic. He’d lost his first run for U.S. Senate in 1974 by 611 votes, and came close to losing again in 1998 by just 428 votes. After a relatively easy campaign in 2004 (he defeated his opponent by more than 210,000 votes), Reid was facing a tough reelection. Republicans in Nevada and nationwide hated
him with a passion that belied his soft-spoken persona. People in the Silver State claimed he’d been changed by Washington, transformed from a pragmatic conservative Democrat into a progressive creature of the Beltway. National Republicans were stymied by Reid’s legislative skill and the victories it afforded Democrats (the Affordable Care Act, for example). This was to be the year that Reid finally met his political end, when the last of his political lives ran out, when a Republican finally took the state back. This was to be the year of revenge. Reid started his reelection early by assembling one of the best political teams ever seen in the Silver State, one unrivaled since. (He’d already transformed the Nevada Democratic Party into a finely tuned machine that two years earlier had helped President Barack Obama win the state.) Next, he set about choosing his opponent from the fertile field of Republicans, led by hotelier Sue Lowden and perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian, who smelled blood in the water. Reid’s forces took out Lowden — considered the biggest threat — largely thanks to a bizarre remark she made at a forum about people bartering for health care as they did in the “olden days.” She refused to back away from the remark, which achieved legendary mock-worthiness when Democratic operative Phoebe Sweet delivered a live goat to a Lowden campaign office, ostensibly seeking health care. In the GOP primary, everybody lost handily to former Reno Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, who’d made inroads with the Tea Party as a pistol-packing grandmother itching to take on the man at the pinnacle of the Democratic establishment. Angle’s general-election campaign started slowly, as Democrats pounded her with attack ads. (They had plenty of material; she’d told one interviewer that people may start turning to “Second Amendment remedies” if political change failed, and another that she’d been prepared for her Senate run the way Jesus, Moses and St. Paul were prepared for their God-given tasks. Later, she’d tell a classroom full of Hispanic students that some of them looked “a little bit Asian to me.”) Still, polls of the Silver State showed Angle ahead, and her supporters — many of them political neophytes who knew very little about professional campaign management, and wore that ignorance as a badge of honor — were cheered. This could actually happen, they thought. This was going to be the year. Reid was going down.
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Postscript: After Reid announced in March 2015 that he’d not seek reelection to a sixth term, Rep. Joe Heck announced he’d run for the seat. A number of gadfly Republicans challenged him for the honor. Among them: Sharron Angle, who’d spent the six years since her loss to Reid heavily promoting her self-published book. (She and her supporters continue to insinuate — but not prove — that her loss was the result of some unspecified fraud.) This time, Heck won handily, 65 percent to 23 percent. Nevada Republicans’ flirtation with Angle, it seemed, was at an end.
faith and politics ‘How can I be a Mormon and a Democrat?’ Harry Reid threads another needle By Michael Green
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arry Reid is Mormon. That may shock and surprise many. Isn’t Reid the Democratic leader of the Senate, a brilliant legislative strategist who spends his days trying to defeat the Republicans, where most, but not all, of his fellow churchgoers find their political home? Yes, that Harry Reid is also a faithful Mormon, and the story of how he found his faith, and what it means to him, traces the arc of his life in public service. “In my home, we had no religion. None. Zero,” Reid noted in his book The Good Fight (from which the quotes in this story have been drawn, unless otherwise noted). The town,
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How he rolls: Reid’s tenure on Capitol Hill will end in January 2017.
Searchlight, was barely surviving — it had no churches. Instead, his mother stitched a quotation — “We can. We will. We must.” — from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was president when Reid was born, “and that was my religion,” he said. (To be sure, Reid never left the church of FDR, either. His antipathy toward people with inherited wealth who lectured others on the merits of capitalism, which spilled onto the 2012 presidential election field, was born of his roots as an FDR Democrat.) In fact, his only real morals lesson as a child — and Reid loves to tell the story — came from the local brothel owner. Reid and a friend stole some bottles that could be redeemed for cash, and Willie Martello, who owned a casino and a house of prostitution, saw them. Later he told Reid, “I didn’t get you in trouble because I think you could amount to something. Don’t you do stuff like that.” So, Reid told Politico earlier this year, “I learned a lot in honesty from a man who ran a whorehouse.” At the time, Reid was going to Basic High School in Henderson, hitchhiking back and forth from Searchlight, which had no high school. His friend Ron McAllister “invited me to go to something called ‘seminary’ that happened every morning before school over at the Mormon church.” Reid had no idea what that meant, but McAllister said it was a great place to meet girls. So he went. Reid attended nearly every morning for the rest of his freshman year, introduced to one of the key figures who would shape his personal life. The teacher, Marlan Walker, also taught Spanish at Basic, and Reid grew to admire and like him. “Seminary awakened my curiosity,” he said. “And very slowly, almost imperceptibly, something that can only be described as a spiritual hunger planted its seed in me.” By the time he went to college in Cedar City, Reid had fallen in love with Landra Gould, who was Jewish. When they eloped, Walker performed their wedding ceremony
at the Mormon church in Henderson, even though they weren’t church faithful at the time. The Reids moved on to Utah State, where Reid had earned an academic scholarship. The pair rented a basement apartment from a Mormon family. Landra Reid worked at a chemical company 50 miles away, and her Mormon bus driver asked if he and a fellow Mormon could come to the apartment and give the Reids religious instruction. Reid said that “our choice was made so much easier by the people we’d met, who set an example for us,” starting with Walker. “And more and more, their faith became our faith. It felt good. And one day after a lesson, Landra said, ‘Do you think this would be good for us?’ We joined the church in February 1960.” He found church members to be helpful and honest. His insurance agent, Dixie Leavitt, helped pay the bills for the birth of the Reids’ first child when it turned out that the policy Reid bought didn’t cover the pregnancy. “Dixie Leavitt answered with such profound decency that I will never forget it,” Reid said. The loyalty that Reid would become so famous for in political life was mirrored in private life, and these acts of kindness cemented him in his faith. Politically, it was more common in those days for Mormons to belong to both parties; at the time of Reid’s election to Congress, about 30 percent of Utah Mormons voted Democratic; today it’s dropped to about 10 percent. But, as Reid told the Washington Post, “It is not uncommon for members of the church to ask how I can be a Mormon and a Democrat. Some say my party affiliation puts me in the minority of our church members. But my answer is that if you look at the church membership over the years, Democrats have not always been the minority, and I believe we won’t be for long. I also say that my faith and political beliefs are deeply intertwined. I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it.”
A P P h o t o / Ha r r y Ha m b u r g
But Reid was not worried, outwardly or otherwise. One of the reasons: He had in his employ pollster Mark Mellman, one of the few researchers to ever figure out Nevada’s notoriously tough-to-crack electorate. By correctly modeling the early and Election Day turnout, Mellman was able to tell Reid he’d win by 6 percentage points. (This was told to me by a Reid supporter about six weeks before Election Day.) As the campaign wore on, Angle became increasingly erratic, eschewing the media (she literally ran from them on several occasions) and airing an ad depicting scary looking Hispanic men creeping along a border fence. But Reid stuck to his well-crafted campaign plan, and kept his notorious penchant for gaffes under wraps. And when November 2 came, Reid won by 41,000 votes, a margin of — wait for it — 5.74 percentage points. Harry Reid had, in fact, manned up.
HendersonPavilion
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TeenTopia
A Night of Comedy with
Rock to Walk
October 1 | 7pm
Produced and promoted by Now I Can Foundation
October 14 | 6pm
October 15 | 11:30am
KIDZ BOP Kids: Life of the Party Tour
On the “Sonny” Side of the Strip Featuring Sonny Turner, Sonny Charles and Kelly Clinton
October 22 | 5pm
October 23 | 6pm
Kellie Pickler
Henderson Stroll ‘n Roll
Tater Tots & Beer Festival
November 12 | 10am
November 12 | 11am
Adam Ferrara | Ryan Hamilton
Family Promise of Las Vegas
1st Annual Family Day Produced and promoted by Family Promise of Las Vegas
with special guest James Wesley
November 6 | 7pm
October 8 | 4pm
Along Paseo Verde Parkway.
Featuring Los 5, After Romeo and Siahna
Produced and promoted by Big Food Fest, LLC
Schedule is subject to change or cancellation without prior notice. Management reserves all rights.
200 S. Green Valley Pkwy.
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your Arts+Entertainment calendar for october
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27 When the Rain Stops Falling A Public Fit
Set in the near future but ranging widely over the years, this moody Australian drama — featuring (quoting the New York Times), “fractured marriages, accidental deaths, disappearing children, suicide and a chart-topping horror that it’s best not to give away” — is set in motion by a large fish falling from the sky. Sounds perfect for the experimental mind-set of the A Public Fit company. Through Nov. 13. 100 S. Maryland Parkway, $25, apublicfit.org
7 Make America Break Again First Friday
This is the penultimate event in artist Diane Bush’s 10-month project in political art, collectively titled Dishing It Out. At this event, visitors will be able to smash plates festooned with images relating to various political candidates (the shards will help create a free-speech mosaic). Also on hand for this art carnival: poets, music and a voter-registration effort. Free, First Friday.
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Jethro Tull — Written 21 and Performed The Skull by Ian Show Anderson
Vegas Valley Book Festival Fifth Street School, Inspire Theatre
Sahara West Library
The Smith Center
Jethro Tull frontman Anderson has apparently defied the prophecy of his band’s 1976 album Too Old to Rock ’n’ Roll, Too Young to Die — he’s still kicking it in this, his 48th year as a musician. 8p, $35-$95, thesmithcenter.com
Hamlet’s interlude with the head-bone of Yorick perhaps represented peak skull, in terms of the ol’ brain bucket’s utility as a symbol of mortality — it’s been a long slide into kitsch since then. This biennial group exhibit, organized by artist Chris Bauder, aims to hoist the skull from its miasma of lame camp and back into the realm of art, while having a little fun, too. Some 30 artists join in. Through Dec. 9. The Studio at Sahara West Library, free, 702-507-3630
It’s a two-part book-apalooza this year. During the day, it’s the usual book bash at the Historic Fifth Street School, highlighted by Craig Johnson, creator of the Longmire series, and historian Stacy Schiff, along with oodles of YA authors. New this year is a literature-focused evening program at the Inspire Theatre, scheduled by Black Mountain Institute and Nevada Humanities. Featured authors: Pulitzer winners Katherine Boo (Behind the Beautiful Forevers) and Adam Johnson (Fortune Smiles), and essayist Geoff Dyer. Free, vegasvalleybookfestival.org
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THE GUIDE ART
THEY SAY THROUGH OCT. 14 Chad Scott’s multimedia installation examines the spectacle of the electoral process during a presidential election. In a political environment filled with mixed messages, Scott raises questions about what it means to be informed, what counts as information and where information may be found. Free. Winchester Gallery, 3130 McLeod Drive, chad-scott.com
ROBIN STARK THROUGH NOV. 10 Stark will share a portfolio of recent ceramic work dedicated to ceremonial and memorial sculptural vessels. Free. Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, clarkcountynv.gov
PAINTED STORIES: DUEL IN THE LIBRARY OCT. 30, 2P Witness an event that showcases two local authors and two local artists on one stage. In two dueling sessions, each author reads from his/her work and both artists will turn blank canvas into works of art, live in front of the audience. After each duel, the authors and artists will discuss their creative processes and answer questions from the audience. Free. Jewel Box Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org
MUSIC
THE FREDDY COLE 85TH YEAR OF CELEBRATION OCT. 7–8, 7P Freddie Cole, brother of Nat King Cole, performs jazz with his own unique style and phrasing. $37–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR OCT. 8, 7:30P; OCT. 9, 2P; PRE-CONCERT CONVERSATION ONE HOUR BEFORE SHOWTIME This concert, presented by the Las Vegas Philharmonic, features pieces used in radio, television and film. Pieces include Rossini’s William Tell Overture, Bizet’s Suite No. 1 from Carmen, Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz and many more. $30–$109. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.org
BIG DADDY’S BARBEQUE OCT. 9, 2P A live double-feature featuring Frank LaSpina performing a tribute to the country music legend Johnny Cash, and Jeff Wayne performing his oneman comedy show. Benefits the Musical Arts Scholarship Program. $25. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
the 1940s through the 1970s. Many of these songs are featured on her new album of the same name. $49–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
UNLV JAZZ CONCERT SERIES: JAZZ ENSEMBLE II OCT. 12, 7P Come listen to various styles of jazz presented by the best student musicians from UNLV’s School of Music’s award winning Division of Jazz Studies. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org
HARLEM QUARTET WITH ALDO LÓPEZ-GAVILÁN OCT. 14–15, 7P The quartet’s mission is to advance diversity in classical music, engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire that includes works by minority composers. $49–$59. Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
JETHRO TULL — WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY IAN ANDERSON OCT. 14, 8P Vocalist and flautist Anderson celebrates 48 years of recording and performance with a presentation of many of his best-known songs. $35–$95. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS
THE SWEETS’ SPOT WITH MELODY SWEETS
OCT. 5, 7:30P Marsalis leads this orchestra through both original works and classic jazz pieces, including works by Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and others. $29–$125. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
OCT. 11, 10P A night of cocktails, original music, classic covers, burlesque, cabaret and vaudeville-style acts hosted by chanteuse Sweets and her band featuring Lon Bronson. $25–$40. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
¡VIVA EL MARIACHI! A CONCERT IN CELEBRATION OF HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH
ANNIE MOSES BAND: THE ART OF THE LOVE SONG
STRAIGHT NO CHASER: I’LL HAVE ANOTHER … 20TH ANNIVERSARY WORLD TOUR
OCT. 12, 6 & 8:30P Moses leads her band through a retrospective of popular love songs from
OCT. 15, 8P If the phrase “male a cappella group” conjures up an image of
OCT. 7, 7P Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with
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an evening of popular music performed by the talented young musicians from Clark County School District’s award-winning Mariachi Music Instructional Program. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org
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MEGAN HILTY WITH SETH RUDETSKY OCT. 15, 7P; OCT. 16, 2P Hilty is best known for her work as Glinda in Wicked and Ivy Lynn in Smash. Redetsky joins her to weave stories and songs of past and present Broadway. $49–$89. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
z i o n n at i o n a l pa r k f o u n d at i o n p r e s e n t s
students in blue blazers, ties and khakis singing traditional college songs on ivied campuses, think again. These boys are neither straitlaced or straight-faced, nor are they vaudeville-style kitsch. $43.50–$75. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
JACK JONES WITH CHRISTIAN JACOB, KENDALL KAY & CHRIS COLANGELO Oct. 17–18, 7p Jones continues to charm audiences with his wit, sensitivity and vocal power. $39–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
ACOUSTIC ALCHEMY OCT. 20–21, 7P Together since the 1980s, guitarists Greg Carmichael and Miles Gilderdale have been known as a powerhouse force in contemporary jazz. $39–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
REVA RICE OCT. 22, 2:30P & 7P Under the artistic direction of Bernard H. Gaddis and musical supervision of Jimmy Locket, Rice’s performances will include a musical timeline of popular songs from Gershwin to Broadway to modern pop. $26–$36. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
SOCKTOBERFEST 2016 OCT. 22, 5P-1A This long-running local private event from Mr. Smiley and Inky Louise goes public for the first time. It’s an Oktoberfest birthday party for Hubert D’Givenski, a Swiss sock monkey! Ludicrous accordion entertainment by the Squeezebox Hero, Oktoberfest beer, specials and sausages for sale, plus a motorized bicycle giveaway and more! Held at the bar where everything is for sale. 21 and older only. Free. ReBAR, 1225 S. Main St., rebarlv.com and squeezeboxhero.com
november 7–13, 2016 John Cogan, Waters of Evening (detail), acrylic, 2016
• 24 Invited Landscape Artists • Free Daily Demonstrations • Free Evening Lectures • Public Wet Paint Exhibit & Sale • Proceeds Benefit Zion National Park
zion national park foundation www.zionpark.org 1-800-635-3959 435-772-3264
Doug Braithwaite Arlene Braithwaite Royden Card John Cogan Michelle Condrat Bill Cramer Linda Dellandre Cody DeLong Bruce Gómez George Handrahan Mary Jabens Roland Lee Richard Lindenberg Patricia McGreeney James McGrew Rachel Pettit Hadley Rampton Mike Simpson Steve Stauffer Gregory Stocks R. Gregory Summers Michele Usibelli Jim Wodark Suze Woolf
field institute
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THE GUIDE SONGS, MUSIC & MEMORIES OCT. 26, 7P; OCT. 30, 4P Everlita Rivera-David and Relly Coloma will perform beautiful classical and modern arrangements of top hits, movie themes, Broadway, opera, Filipino ballads and gospel songs. $39–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
LAINIE KAZAN OCT. 28–29, 7P Kazan pays homage to her idols Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Sophie Tucker and many others who have influenced her five-decades-long career. $39–$65. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
JOHNNY MATHIS — THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT TOUR OCT. 29, 7:30P Mathis will perform a variety of his greatest hits and personal favorites, including “Chances Are,” “Misty” and “It’s Not for Me to Say,” alongside his tour band, whose members have performed with him for decades. $29–$175. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
THEATER
THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY OCT. 13–15, 19–20, 26–27, 8P; OCT. 16, 22 & 23, 2P Kristoffer Diaz’s satire about a professional wrestler. $16–$20. Art Square Theatre, 1025 S. First St. #110, cockroachtheatre.com
MACBETH OCT. 14–29, THU–SAT 7:30P William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy retold in a contemporary style. $14.75– $16.50. Black Box Theatre, unlv.edu
THE NANCE OCT. 21–NOV. 6, THU–SAT 8P, SUN 2P Through the character of Chauncey Miles, playwright Douglas Carter Beane brings the raunchy backstage world of
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1930s burlesque to life. $21–$24. Las Vegas Little Theatre, lvlt.org
LAS VEGAS IMPROVISATIONAL PLAYERS
lectures, speakers and panels
LAS VEGAS STORIES: HAUNTED LAS VEGAS
OCT. 22, 7P Made-up musicals, not-so-super heroes and genre-bending vignettes fill this fun show entirely driven by you, the audience. Kid and grandma safe! $10. Fern Adair Conservatory for the Arts, 3265 E. Patrick Lane, lvimprov.com
OCT. 6, 7P Are there casinos in Las Vegas that are haunted? Did Elvis and some of Las Vegas’ most famous entertainers never leave the stages they loved? Paul Papa tells the spooky tales of another side of Vegas, where in a 24-hour town, it’s not uncommon for things to go bump in the night. Free. Jewel Box Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org
WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING
DEEPAK CHOPRA: THE FUTURE OF WELLBEING
OCT. 28–NOV. 6, THU–SAT 8P, SAT–SUN 2P A Public Fit’s Ann Marie Pereth and Joseph Kucan co-direct this drama in a found space that fits the philosophical subject matter: an 8,000-square-foot empty warehouse in the developing Fremont East District. The play delves into the prophecy and aftermath of a fish falling from the sky during a days-long deluge, with a story that spans four generations and two continents. $25. 100 Fremont St., apublicfit.org
OCT. 28, 7:30 Looking to improve your overall health and wellbeing? Discover a new approach to wellness with Dr. Chopra, world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. $35–$175. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
DANCE
VIVO ROCK OCT. 1, 2P Mexico Vivo Dance Company celebrates its 21st anniversary with a bilingual celebration of rock music, featuring selected songs and dances from the 1971 show Grease. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, clarkcountynv.gov
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY OCT. 22, 7:30P; OCT. 23, 2P Nevada Ballet Theatre dances Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s classic interpretation of the beloved fairy tale, complete with wicked stepmother, Prince Charming and hex-busting kiss. $29–$139. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, nevadaballet.org
FAMILY & FESTIVALS
MOTLEY BREWS’ DOWNTOWN BREW FESTIVAL OCT. 22, 5–9P The DBF offers more than 100 craft brews from more than 60 local, national and international breweries. Nonstop live music and entertainment will fill the air. $35–$70. Clark County Amphitheater, downtownbrewfestival.com
DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD LIVE OCT. 26, 6:30P The legacy of the beloved Mister Rogers lives on with the hit television series. Now, Daniel and all of his friends are hopping aboard Trolley to delight live audiences. $19-$75. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com
FUNDRAISERS
THE MARCH OF DIMES’ ANNUAL SIGNATURE CHEFS AUCTION OCT. 7, 6:30P Don’t miss this event that brings together top Las Vegas kitchen wizards
Channel 10
to benefit premature infants in peril. $250, individuals; $2,000, tables. Green Valley Ranch Resort, signaturechefs.marchofdimes.org
ZOMBIE ZUMBATHON OCT. 29, 2–4P Dance for fun at this zombie-themed Halloween fundraiser benefiting The Blood Drive. Prizes, guest teachers, food and drinks provided. Zombie costumes encouraged! $10. Tivoli Village main stage, thepinktutuballet.com
HALLOWEEN
ASYLUM AND HOTEL FEAR SEPT. 30–OCT. 31, FRI–SAT 6:30P–12A; SUN & THU 6:30–10P Visit Nevada’s longest running stand-alone haunted attraction as it celebrates its 18th year of being a “Top Haunt.” Walk through the sanitarium as a terrifying story unveils. This isn’t your basic monsters and spooks attraction, this is the real deal. $15–$35. Meadows Mall, lvhaunts.com
FREAKLING BROS. THE TRILOGY OF TERROR SEPT. 30–OCT. 31, SUN–THU 7–11P; FRI–SAT 7P–12A (CLOSED OCT. 3–13, MON–THU) Continually voted one of the scariest haunted houses on the planet! Enter through the Gates of Hell (rated R), be vexed by the Coven 13 and sink your fangs into Castle Vampyre. $14–$35. Grand Canyon Shopping Center, 4245 S. Grand Canyon Drive, freaklingbros.com
The Contenders: 16 for 16 Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
FRONTLINE: Confronting ISIS
Nature: Super Hummingbirds
Tuesday, October 11 at 9 p.m.
Wednesday, October 12 at 8 p.m.
FRIGHT DOME OCT. 1–31, 7P–12A The 5-acre theme park is transformed into six haunted houses and four scare zones including Insanitarium, the Dollhouse, the Slaughterhouse and Killer Clowns in 4-D. All of the theme park’s rides are included and ridden in the dark. $36.95–$99.95. Circus Circus Adventuredome, frightdome.com
Hamilton’s America Friday, October 21 at 9 p.m.
Bill Murray: The Mark Twain Prize Friday, October 28 at 9 p.m.
VegasPBS.org | 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89121 | 702.799.1010 O C to b e r 2 0 1 6
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END NOTE
The puck starts here You have a year to become a real hockey fan. Here’s how. B y M at t Ja c o b
O
n June 22, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman made official what had long been rumored: The league would become the first of the nation’s four major professional sports organizations to plant a flag in Las Vegas. With Bettman’s announcement that Florida finance mogul Bill Foley could pony up $500 million to put an expansion team here in time for the 2017-18 season, many in the community swelled with pride — precisely five weeks after its 111th birthday, our city was finally all grown up. By delivering us an NHL franchise, Foley and Bettman have given Southern Nevadans something many of us have needed: an identity around which to rally. Of course, now the onus is on us to prove that this deserves to be a Major League City. With our yet-to-be-named franchise set to play its first game in October 2017, you’ve got one calendar year to learn what it means to become a true fan of the home team. Here are some tips: Today: Get to know the league and our team’s place in it. With the addition of Las Vegas, the NHL will have 31 clubs — 16 in the Eastern Conference and 15 in the Western. Las Vegas will compete in the Western Conference’s Pacific Division. Tomorrow: So you already know the league, you say? You’re a Northern California transplant and San Jose Sharks fan? Not for long! The Sharks (along with teams from Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) are in the Pacific Division and thus become a
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blood enemy in exactly a year — which is precisely how much time you have to renounce that allegiance. November 15: If you expect to attend games at T-Mobile Arena, it’s time to start lubing your vocal chords and strengthening your legs. Because NHL fans rarely sit down. Or shut up. December 1: Hockey isn’t a complicated game to grasp, but it does have its own terminology. Google “icing,” “offsides,” “blue line” and “power play.” If you turn to another fan on opening night and ask, “What’s icing?” you’re liable to get crosschecked. (Google that one, too.) December 2: Also Google “The Great One” and “Mr. Hockey.” If someone mentions either, you must never ask, “Who?” January 1, 2017: Forget college football. You’re spending New Year’s Day watching a marathon of cinematic hockey classics: the Mighty Ducks franchise, followed by Miracle and finishing with Slap Shot. You will watch that last one, a cult flick, at least once a week until opening night. March 17, 2017: On St. Paddy’s Day, collect and stash hats discarded by oblivi-
ous binge-drinkers. Yes, hats. You’ll need them at T-Mobile. Because when someone from the home team scores three goals in a game — a “hat trick,” as you know from your Googling — fans salute by showering the ice with hats. You don’t want to part with that $30 lid with the team logo. June 1, 2017: Speaking of logo’d merchandise, now is the time to pick up your authentic team jersey. They aren’t cheap, but you must own at least one and wear it frequently — especially at home games. One thing: They’re called “sweaters,” not jerseys (hardcore hockey fans take their lingo seriously). June 2, 2017: Put the face paint back on the shelf. October, 2017: When Bettman comes to T-Mobile Arena for our first home game, you will boo him. Loudly and often. Why would you boo the first major league commissioner to roll the dice on Las Vegas? Because he’s still Gary Bettman, and in accordance with NHL fan bylaws, Gary Bettman must be booed. Always. It will make sense eventually. When it does, you’ll know you’re a true hockey fan at last.
i l lu st r at i o n C h r i s M o r r i s
2015 ACS Photo by Virginia Trudeau
Nevada Ballet Theatre and Cirque du Soleil® present
A CHOREOGRAPHERS’ SHOWCASE
NOVEMBER 13, 19 & 20, 2016 MYSTÈRE THEATRE, TREASURE ISLAND AT 1 PM
Tickets: $25 • $35 • $45*
Nevadaballet.org | 702.894.7722 *
Your $45 premium ticket purchase provides you with preferred seating and supports the Future Dance Program for students in Clark County.
UNITED FOR A FUTURE WITHOUT BREAST CANCER
Anne Larson
Diagnosis: Breast Cancer
One out of eight women will face breast cancer in her lifetime. Which means one out of eight wives, sisters, aunts, daughters and mothers will be stricken. When breast cancer strikes one of us, whole families suffer. This is why all of the medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and breast surgery specialists at Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada are dedicated supporters of Susan G. Komen for the CureŽ, whose tireless efforts and groundbreaking research are making a future without breast cancer more of a possibility than ever before. In addition to supporting organizations like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Comprehensive is also practicing healing edge medicine through our affiliation with the The US Oncology Network, which gives us access to the latest innovations in cancer treatment therapies as they are developed. These emerging treatments, along with our ever-increasing body of medical knowledge, benefits every breast cancer patient we treat — more than 6,000 women every year. But to end breast cancer once and for all, it will take a united effort from all of us. Think of the eight women who matter most in your life. Imagine one of them with breast cancer, and you can begin to feel the urgency of this mission. Ask your doctor about Comprehensive. Visit cccnevada.com for more information or call 702.952.3350 to schedule an appointment today.