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"Desert Inn Closes - Workers Out"
Friday, June 23, 2000
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Workers
call imminent unemployment `dirty, really dirty'
By Dave Berns
Review-Journal
They're angry, frustrated, confused, a mix of emotions that most
people would experience if they had worked for more than a decade
at a place that they had suddenly learned is closing.
Ask Tina Smith.
For 22 years the single parent who's raising four children has
worked at the Desert Inn. At $12 an hour, her job in the hotel's
housekeeping department has paid her enough to get by. Now
she has 90 days to find a new job because of the hotel-casino's
late September closure, which was announced Thursday morning by
new owner Steve Wynn.
"I never thought it would come to this," Smith said
Thursday afternoon. "To me it's dirty, really dirty. "To
me Steve Wynn don't care about people. Three months isn't enough.
Most of the people are just crying really bad, and they're
angry."
Rumors of the pending closure spread through the Desert Inn for
several days.
Casino bosses lowered table game limits from $5,000 to $500. Hotel
clerks stopped taking long-term reservations. Marketing efforts
came to a halt.
The signs were there, but they didn't ease Thursday's sense of
surprise and, for some, betrayal.
"We've been already crying for hours now," said a casino
cage clerk. "It's very sad for us."
"Everybody's long-faced," said a VIP host who had just
visited the employee dining room. "To see an era go by is
tough."
A Thursday afternoon walk through the DI's casino reflected some
of Wynn's likely rationale for closing the 50-year-old property.
Yes, it was remodeled in 1997 for $200 million by then-owner ITT
Corp., which sold it to Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which sold
it to Wynn for $270 million in cash.
But at three- to five-times smaller than the average Strip casino,
the Desert Inn's 29,000-square-foot gambling area is a poor cash
flow generator, generating relatively paltry profits for the
property. And it's the casino that allows most Strip
operators to pay for the construction of the megaresorts with
their elaborate shows, high-end restaurants and 3,000-room hotels.
As usual, Wynn's talking big, a 59-story hotel tower with lavish
gardens, an art museum, quality restaurants. Call it -- Bellagio,
the next generation.
But it's housekeeping's Smith, and co-worker Maria Rapalo, a
kitchen helper who's been working there a month, and an
anonymity-seeking poolside bartender who were left feeling stunned
by Thursday's news.
"I'm very angry. I thought I had a job," Smith said.
"I never thought it would come to this."
Neither, apparently, did leaders of Culinary Local 226, which
represents hundreds of Desert Inn workers. Jim Arnold, the union's
secretary-treasurer, declined to take an afternoon phone call
seeking comment. A union secretary said Arnold didn't have
all the facts about the pending closure nor could her boss say how
many union members work at the property.
Wynn assured gaming regulators at a morning hearing called to OK
his Desert Inn purchase that he would help the property's 1,500
workers find jobs at competing Strip resorts. Yet, a
security guard wasn't feeling particularly upbeat about that
prospect.
As he asked a reporter and photographer to leave the grounds --
Desert Inn executives were not permitting on-site interviews --
the security guard had one other thing on his mind.
"Do you have any idea who's hiring?" the guy asked.
"I'm looking."
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