Wolfgang Puck Departing Springs Preserve?

Just got word that Wolfgang Puck appears to be about to relinquish control over the food service at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve Cafe. The replacement is actually pretty interesting, too.

Here's what employees of the water district, which oversees the 4-year-old Spring Preserve, were told today in an e-mail blast:

"The LVVWD Board of Directors today approved a staff recommendation to negotiate a contract with the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas to operate the Springs Preserve's restaurant and onsite catering. If the Board approves the contract at a subsequent meeting, the Culinary Academy would replace Wolfgang Puck as operator of the Springs Cafe. The Culinary Academy of Las Vegas is a nonprofit partnership—between Union Local #226, Bartenders Local #165 and Las Vegas Strip properties—which provides employment and training for hospitality-industry workers."

That's kinda cool, right? The local cooking school will manage this? It's sensible, undoubtedly less expensive and a smart partnership between two educational institutions.

Still, it can't be a good sign for the Springs Preserve's visitation numbers. And for Puck is like the Cirque du Soleil of food around these parts; he's only previously closed one restaurant in Vegas that I know of, Chinois.

Nevada's Top Union to Harry Reid: End DADT

More pressure in the form of this letter (click to enlarge and read) earlier in the week from D. Taylor, the head of the 65,000+-member Culinary Union, pivotal for Reid's re-election:

Unions Heart Sands and Sheldon!

No, your eyes do not deceive you. Despite Las Vegas Sands and CEO Sheldon Adelson in particular being seen as Public Enemy No. 1 by the unions in Las Vegas, this was a full-page ad in the Express-Times in Bethlehem on Friday celebrating the opening of the casino there. (I had to scan in three parts and piece it together).

I asked LVS spokesman Ron Reese about this odd turn of events. He proudly reported that the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is "100 percent union built."

He said they used "some" union labor for building the hotels in Las Vegas. But he had a grin on his face that told me I was not wrong to find this all quite ironic. It was only earlier this month that litigation between LVS and the Culinary 226 in Las Vegas over issues related to the opening of Venetian in 1999 were finally fully ended. The Venetian-Palazzo is the largest non-union shop on the Strip and the halls of the Culinary's downtown offices are adorned with photos of massive protests against Adelson. I want to say there's even photos of people holding pickets in which Adelson has the devil's horns on him.

Yet in the Keystone State, they're 100 percent union built and proud of it! (The service workers are not union, though.) Not only that, but the company spent $743 million to build a casino in a jurisdiction where they'll have to hand over 55 percent of the gaming revenue to the state!?!

What does Bethlehem and Harrisburg have that Vegas and Carson City don't? Anyone?

Vegas Univision Stages Its Own Obama Rally

Following Friday's Obama rally at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 Hall in Las Vegas, I was asked to wait for about a half-hour for an interview I needed with the union leader for some election coverage I'm working on including this piece for the New York Times. So I sat eating Skittles in the press area of the now-empty hall where hundreds of union workers had given Sen. Barack Obama a rousing welcome earlier.

Then I started noticing something odd happening. A reporter for the Spanish-language Univision station, KINC Channel 15, was doing a bit of his own union organizing. He corralled about two dozen union members clad in red Obama T-shirts to crowd around him as he did his live stand-ups for the 6 p.m. news. I don't speak Spanish, but it was obvious that he also instructed folks to go get placards and egged them on to cheer and chant for Obama en Espanol when he was on the air.

Here's what it looked like as he did it:


And this is him on the air, before what to viewers at home must have looked like a wild, enthusiastic and large crowd, a la those shots of crazy sports fans outside the stadium after the big game.

You can see below there's nobody behind these people...


Although TV news folks do things we print people never can, I still thought this was fishy -- and a local ABC reporter also doing a stand-up in the same area seemed visibly annoyed by the whole thing and all the manufactured noise going on behind her. I was right: My own partner, the local NBC executive producer, confirmed that faking a rally for a political candidate in the middle of a hotly contested race (well, anytime) is a serious no-no.

Beyond that, I feel obliged to provide equal coverage to go with my Hillary-eats-guacamole photo essay from Thursday, so here's what the ACTUAL Obama rally looked like:

And, as always, I'm a sucker for pictures cute kids, especially ones with colorful leggings...

...and odd-looking people wearing random pink clothes...

Party on, man!