Top 15 Things That Happened in Vegas Stayed in Vegas
Las Vegas is a dreamland of wonder and booze for any party animal. It calls
anyone who wants to have a great time, go wild and then pretend it never
happened. For many, Las Vegas is where you go to escape your
daily life of chores and responsibilities.
At least, that's what many of you think. The Internet is at your fingertips
everywhere these days and as you know, it's pretty hard to keep all your
activities a secret. Unless you live in an Amish community with no Internet
access or TV, some news is bound to reach you about the strange, bizarre and
shocking events going down in the city that never sleeps.
Despite the saying "What Happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", the
place is not a black hole where time and events are sucked into a void that never reach or
affect the rest of the world. Be assured, if you get married in Las Vegas then you
stay married everywhere else. They even have paperwork to make it valid abroad,
so avoid making eye contact with the nice lady at the end of the bar counter. Same goes
for being arrested, it will show up in your record, so go wild but moderately or at least try to.
There are always some interesting facts or events that don't always get to
the surface, even though they are not exactly being hidden from the public. If
you wonder what some of the most interesting or weird things that have happened
in Las Vegas are then check out this list of things that have been banned, some "interesting" happenings in hotels and
celebrity shenanigans that you wouldn't see in New York or Chicago.
15) No Pets Allowed
Even though going on vacations with your pooch sounds like a wonderful idea, you
might find that Fido is not allowed to come with you to the Strip. Dogs
are not allowed inside buildings, therefore there have been too many cases of animals left
unattended for hours outside on the streets under the scorching Nevada sun with
no water and very likely leaving a few little smelly gifts on the pavement as
well. There have even been cases of animals growing so stressed that they ended
up biting pedestrians, so to prevent this from happening again the Las Vegas
city council banned all pets from coming into the Strip. You can still walk them but forget about tying your dog to a lamppost while you go inside a casino for a
quick drink or a fast round at the slot machines.
No pets allowed on the Las Vegas Strip
14) Bath Salts Are
for Bathing
You are in your fancy hotel room after an exciting day of gambling, drinking,
eating everything you can at a buffet and having generally as much fun as you
can have in a place like Las Vegas. You are ready to relax and sink down into a
hot, bubbly bath in the giant fancy bathtub of your room. You fill the tub with
steaming hot water, strip down somewhat in a sexy fashion even though there is
nobody else to see it (or are there?) and then you reach for the bath salts,
only to find nothing.
Bath Salts
There are no bath salts in any hotel of Las Vegas because they have been banned. If
you wonder why then that means you are a good person who's not familiar with the world
of using common items to get high.
In recent years, there have been many reports of people snorting or eating
bath salts to get high and none have ended well. Usually, it means a trip to the
emergency room because bath salts are not meant to be inside your body. In most
cases, they end with you in a psychotic episode, which is never fun.
That's the reason why Las Vegas has banned bath salts, not because they hate
bubbles but for health reasons.
13) Feeding the
Hungry
This ban is a little less about health hazards and a little more questionable on
certain aspects. There are two species that you are forbidden to feed while in
Las Vegas and one is pigeons. It's pretty easy to understand: pigeons are annoying,
make you trip when you try to walk through them, knock out your hat if the fly
too low, are flea-ridden little sacks of feathers, poop and
diseases. There is a reason they are called "flying rats" around the world,
after all. They also
tend to destroy roofs by making their nests on them and leaving their droppings
everywhere, this ruins the paint and there's even been cases of flocks of
pigeons attacking tourists. Due to all of these reasons, there is a strict ban
on feeding them. If you get caught, you will first get a warning but a second
time can land you up to six months of jail time.
No feeding the Pigeons in Las Vegas.
The other species that you are not allowed to feed is a little more
controversial because it's homeless people. There was a ban placed on feeding the homeless in the street and not only about handing
out someone a burger in the park. Charities were affected by this ban too,
forbidden from setting up food carts or any other kind of food distribution on
the street.
It used to be Illegal to Feed the Homeless in Las Vegas
Luckily, a judge ruled that this ban was unconstitutional. It was not only
deemed a bit of a nasty thing to do but also unclear. After all, it's not always
easy to tell if the person is homeless or just someone with bad hygiene but discrimination is never nice.
12) Paris Hilton
Celebrity banning is not something too out of place in Las Vegas, even if it
sounds like nothing that would ever happen anywhere else but in this city
seeing celebrities party a bit too hard for their own good is not so uncommon.
In this case, it was the infamous rich heiress Paris Hilton who got banned
from staying at the Wynn Hotels in 2010 after she was caught in possession of cocaine
and her companion at the time was allegedly caught driving under the effects of
marijuana when they were making it to the hotel. Having fun in Las Vegas is
great but it doesn't mean that being rich and famous gives you carte
blanche to do as you please, especially if it's possibly dangerous as well as obviously
illegal. You can ask Lil Wayne, who was banned from the same hotel chain for
similar reasons.
Luckily for Paris, the ban was lifted and it only lasted for about three
years. Hopefully, this serves as a lesson for her and other celebrities that
think they're above the law.
Paris Hilton was Banned from Las Vegas hotels
By JuneAugust,
via
Wikimedia Commons
11) Hip Hop Concerts
This ban is another controversial one that might make you question what exactly
the people writing laws in Las Vegas are thinking. After a sheriff's complaint,
Hip Hop concerts were banned due to supposedly inciting gang violence and
outbursts of incidents all over the place. Even though it was never questioned
out loud that alcohol most likely brought up these incidents, the
casinos vehemently complained against the ban but slowly and quietly conceded. Hip hop concerts and appearances by musicians of the genre were gradually
canceled and dropped off the schedule.
Busta Rhymes at a Las Vegas Hip Hop Party prior to the Ban
By Nabeel Hyatt,
via
Wikimedia Commons
No word about if spontaneous rapping in the street will get you arrested but
it's not encouraged to try it out.
10) Hula Hoops and
Noise
If there is a bizarre thing a city would feel the need to ban, that has to be
Hula hoops. You must be wondering what could possibly make this inoffensive fun
toy for kids get a ban from a place that likes fun as much as Las Vegas does.
Hula Hoop performing is Illegal on the Streets of Las Vegas
Well, the reasoning behind this ban is as follows:
Street vendors and performances are an everyday thing in Las Vegas. It's a
good way to boost up business and keep a person entertained, that's for sure.
The problem is not the performers but the size of the hoops they
are using. They are not the average toy you might have played with as a kid but
are really huge ones, so much that they can take the entire sidewalk when they're
hooping. Having one of them blocking the sidewalk at every other
corner is not very conducive to walking, so the city council banned this kind
of street performance.
As a last minute addition, they also banned from the streets; vuvuzelas, megaphones
and other things that are used to make noise as well as talk
loudly. These rules were added because the decibel levels can raise to dangerous and harmful levels really
easily in a busy street.
Megaphones are not permitted to be used outside in Las
Vegas
9) Caught in the
Elevator
When it comes to stories about Las Vegas that you wish you could erase from
history and from your brain, nothing beats personal tales from disgruntled
hotel patrons. Life is all about experiences but certainly there are some you
wish just never happened.
Such is the case of a woman that you will only know as Sally because Sally
is a nice anonymous name. Sally went to stay a few days in Las Vegas with her husband, who
was attending a convention related to his work. While he was out, Sally decided
to go out and see what she could do to kill some time. She was heading for the
elevator, she saw a fancy executive man with a young professional lady friend
hanging from his arm. Sally thought nothing of it, except perhaps how creepy
that was, and considered turning tail. It was then that she recognized the
executive as her own husband. The situation may have evolved into a slapstick Mexican stand-off yelling contest and then
divorce but sadly, you will never know.
Husband caught with another woman
8) Leave the Tall
Lady Alone
This entry is not a funny one and though it happened in Las Vegas, it's more a
recurrent sort of incident in a certain fast food chain.
Transgender Lady was Kicked out of a Restaurant for doing
nothing.
In this specific case, what happened is that a really tall transgendered
woman of more than six feet tall was fully dressed in women's clothing and
went to get herself some lunch in one of the Strip's restaurants. Not five
minutes after she went in, one of the managers ran outside to find a security
guard. If you are wondering if she had caused some sort of incident, the answer
is of course not. She was quietly eating her food at a table when the manager
returned with the security guard. After some talking and coaxing to get her to
leave the place for no tangible reason, she snapped and threw her fries at them.
The security guard's reaction was as professional and calm as a chimpanzee's. He
grabbed her sandwich, shoved it on her face and smeared ketchup on her; ruining
her make up on the process. Afterwards, he forced her up on her feet and
forcefully carried her out of the restaurant.
It's no wonder that Las Vegas would want this incident to be left out of
public knowledge. Consider that one less point for you, Las Vegas and the same
for you too, unnamed fast food restaurant chain.
7) This Room Smells
Like Zombies and Broken Dreams
Everyone likes a good hotel horror story but at the same time, you wish and
pray to any higher power you believe in that it never happens to you. If you
want to know what the worst you can find upon entering your cozy hotel room is,
here is a good example.
All the way back in 2003, a couple rented a room in a hotel with a name that
rhymes with Starbucks. The name was purposely left out, let's not give out names
because pointing and laughing is a
nasty thing to do. Upon entering the room, the first thing that hit the
couple's senses was not the beautiful matching colors of the upholstery or a
fresh scent of mint and potpourri. It was exactly the contrary to mint
and dried fancy leaves.
A foul smell was emanating from their room, bad enough to make a vulture's
stomach churn and the source of the smell was not a corpse under the mattress
but smelled just as bad. When the man went inside the bathroom, he found several
used feminine hygiene products and both were in the trash and toilet. The smell was really awful
but it was not the only thing adding to the stench. Further inspection of the
room left the man to find a half rotten bag of moldy McDonald's food under the
bed, the combination of the smells was almost as bad as a rotten corpse. Someone
in room service wasn't doing their job!
The Stinky Hotel Room
6) The Intoxicating
Bouquet of Food
It doesn't matter how fancy the hotel you stay at is, always make sure you don't
get a room that's situated directly on top of one of the restaurants. There was
once a case of a couple that was woken up at two in the morning by the most
putrid smell, even worse than used tampons and rotting chicken nuggets. This
time the smell wasn't coming from the room but from the ventilation
vents. The restaurant below was cleaning the vents and all of the months old
grease and dirt sprayed straight into the air vents above. After several
customers woke up with burning eyes and gagging, they complained about it.
Absurdly, nothing was done to fix it and no one got any more sleep that night.
Air Vents can make way for Disgusting Smells
5) Just What You'd
Find at Every Shop
One of the magical things you can do in Las Vegas and one you
won't want to talk too much about is how you can enter any 7-Eleven at any
random time of the day or night, buy yourself some snacks, chug a soda then
calmly sit down in front of an electronic poker machine and start pouring
pennies into it until you leave a lot richer or a lot poorer. It's a frightening concept that a
city that is already full of casinos would feel the need to add more gambling
machines to the place but they are the experts.
4) For Those Night
Cravings
There aren't very many places in addition to Las Vegas that make it possible to
go out in the middle of the night for breakfast. Not just some fast food that
will serve you whatever they have in their regular menu but an
honest to God breakfast with eggs, bacon and sausage that you don't have to wait
until morning to be served it. At Victory Café for 99 cents, you can have your
heavenly breakfast that will help you further destroy your circadian cycle. If that is not enough for you, there
are always Las Vegas style buffets open that won't look at you twice for
wanting a steak and mashed potatoes instead of sleeping.
3) You Might See Roy
Horn
Roy Horn, the famous performer that's well known for having a love for albino
tigers is a celebrity and performer
in Las Vegas. If you want to see him, you go to Las Vegas and that's the end of
it. Despite rumors saying that the man died in some accident in Europe and was
replaced by an imposter pretending to be him, the real Roy Horn is still alive
and keeps performing his show with his partner
Siegfried.
It's true that he suffered an accident during a performance in 2003 when one
of his tigers lunged at his neck and dragged him out off stage but despite the
severity of his injuries, he recovered.
2) Dinner with Show
This one is a bit unsavory but you can bet your breeches that you wouldn't see
this happening in New York or Paris, no matter whom the celebrity is involved.
However, in Las Vegas the weird and scandalous is bound to happen.
In this case, the protagonist of the episode was one Robin Leach. This
English-born entertainment celebrity has been living in Las Vegas since 2008
but this incident happened almost ten years prior to his moving. You have to
wonder if he was nostalgic about the wild parties he'd thrown back then or in
his case the indecent and decadent parties.
Robin Leach at the MGM Casino
This incident happened at the Venetian Hotel's restaurant one fateful night
when Robin Leach was having dinner with some ladies from the red light district.
After feasting and drinking a bit too much, the ladies started to feel like the
room was too hot. They felt like the most reasonable thing to do at that time
was to take off clothing items. One of them went as far as to get completely
naked and lay on the table so Leach along with his company could put whipped cream and
chocolate on her body. If you don't believe it, ask the whole bunch of reporters
that witnessed it.
1) Frank Sinatra,
No.
Frank Sinatra was pretty much the ruling king of Las Vegas during the 1960's and
perhaps it got a little bit to his head. At first, he
performed at the Sands Casino until one night in 1967 when the casino cut off
his gambling credit. Outraged, he demanded his credit be restored but the
new owner of the Sands was Howard Hughes. He and Sinatra had some common
past that had turned them into bitter enemies. Hughes saw this as a good chance
to get back at Sinatra and put him in his place but the artist didn't take it
lying down.
Frank Sinatra
After getting drunk, he crashed a golf car through a glass window. Then he
proceeded to throw plastic chips at random employees and finally he waltzed into
the restaurant and gallantly flipped over the table where Carl Cohen,
the casino's manager, was sitting. He literally flipped over a table, let the
beauty of that sentence sink into you.
After that colossal temper tantrum, Sinatra moved his show to Caesar's
Palace and his career wasn't affected negatively whatsoever.
Conclusion
These cautionary tales of drunken foolishness and awesome things
happening all at the same time are legendary in Las Vegas. If you decide to take
a trip to Las Vegas and see some tales happen in front of your
very own eyes, here is a bit of advice:
Take a camera with you and record every single second of it. Don't miss a
thing because if it's happening in Las Vegas then it's bound to be
amazing or at least shocking enough that the local authorities might not want
it to be known at all. Then again, you should not be caught recording or at least use a hidden camera. Try a camera inside a
teddy bear, a grown adult parading around casinos with a teddy bear in their
arms wouldn't be weird.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, avoid being
caught doing anything shameful or possibly embarrassing in front of any
recording devices or suspicious stuffed animals. The locals already know this
rule and follow it religiously.
There are a lot of secretive people in Las Vegas, trying to keep their
activities under wraps. If you are fortunate to catch something entertaining at
someone's expense then make sure the telling of the tale can't be traced back to
you. After all, the saying "What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas" sounds
an awful lot like a warning to blabbering tourists.
References:
15-10)
www.mentalfloss.com/ List of banned items and activities in Las
Vegas
8) Leave the Tall Lady Alone!
Written testimony of the incident at a McDonald’s restaurant in the
Strip (left the name of the restaurant out on reason of not wanting to
get sued).
www.tripadvisor.com true stories of customer experiences in Las
Vegas Hotels
15-1)
Las Vegas Official website (for facts about things you can do in Las
Vegas at night and celebrity anecdotes about Roy Horn, Frank Sinatra and
Robin Leach.)
www.vegas.com
