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?

Can Someone Explain This To Me?

I was looking to rent a car at McCarran for a visiting friend and went to various websites for prices. For some reason -- and I never do this -- I looked carefully at what the taxes are that people coming to Las Vegas pay for their car rentals.

The numbers don't add up. Would somebody with a good math brain help me out? The guiding figure here is supposed to be the base rate, right? You don't pay taxes on other taxes, do you?

Take National, for instance. The base rate for this reservation is $145.77. Here's the tax breakdown that they provide:


See the Sales Tax line? It says it's 7.75 percent, but $12.68 on $145.77 is actually 8.70 percent. And why are three 2 percent taxes listed here but the third one is different and actually works out to 2.2 percent? And how about that 6 percent "Nv Gvt Svc Fee"? At $9.64, you're being charged 6.6 percent.

This also seems to be the case for Alamo, owned by the same company. Here's their breakdown on a base rate of $125.70.


Again, the amount charged for sales tax is actually 8.7 percent of the base rate, the third 2 percent tax is actually a 2.2 percent tax and the Nv Gvt Svc Fee listed as 6 percent is actually 6.6 percent of the base rate.

In neither case does the breakdown indicate what percentage the Concession Recovery Fee is supposed to be. Yet on this breakout from Avis, It says it's 10 percent.


Going back to do that math on National and Avis, then, we see that those companies are charging 10.2 percent. And although the list of taxes looks a little different here, in both the Alamo/National and Avis cases, assuming a 10 percent rate for the Concession Recovery Fee, the total rate in both cases comes to 29.75. (This does not include the $3/day "facility charge" because that is based per day and not as a percentage.)

But take another look at what Avis charges for the only thing it breaks out alone, the 9.75 percent "tax." They charge $18.89 on a base rate of $167.97. But that's actually 11.25 percent, not 9.75 percent.

How about Hertz? Here's their breakdown, which omits any indication of any percentages. The base rate here is $208.47.


What do we see? Well the good news is that the "Gov Service Fee" that we were told in the other breakdowns is supposed to be 6 percent turns out to be... 6 percent of the base rate. But other than that, Hertz' breakdowns are baffling and vague. The "Airport Concession Fee Recovery" fee is 10.4 percent of the base rate and the undefined "Taxes" line comes to 11.2 percent of the base. These figures have no evident relation to any specific taxes.

I tried Thrifty. Here's what happened over there:


Once again, the numbers are off. A 4 percent charge on a $124.05 base charge, for instance, ought to come to $4.96, not $5.32. A 7.75 percent state tax ought to come to $9.61, not $10.31.

In fact, the only tax in Thrifty's summary that is accurate is the 10 percent "APT Access Rec Fee" -- it really is $12.40 on a $124.05 charge. (Actually, if we were rounding up, it would've been $12.41, but they gave us the penny.) I'm starting to think that's because most people can actually calculate a 10 percent charge in their head and they wouldn't want us to spot these overcharges too easily.

What all five have in common is that their stated taxes, which in some cases are bunched together and called different things, comes to a total tax rate of 29.75 percent plus the $3/day facility charge.

And yet, here are the actual percentages of the base rate charged in each case, again leaving off the $3/day facility charge:

Avis: 32.25 percent
Hertz: 31.6 percent
National: 31.7 percent
Alamo: 31.7 percent
Thrifty: 31.98 percent

What am I missing here? How can these rates be different from one company to the next?

Anybody out there have any thoughts? Are these companies deliberately overcharging taxes and keeping the extra? The fact that that 10 percent charge in the Thrifty computation works out correctly when applied to the base rate would seem to kill the theory that the percentages aren't based on the base rate. And, anyway, what else would they be based upon?

Don't know about you, but my head hurts.

Will You NOT Come To Vegas...

...if it costs you 3 percent more per room night?

The Nevada Assembly today by a 35-7 passed a room-tax increase of 3 percent for Washoe and Clark counties. The move is supposed to raise $233 million for the cash-strapped state.

Lots of Republicans voted in support and even Gov. Jim Gibbons, a read-my-lips kinda guy himself, has included the money in his budget. But some of the seven who voted against it think this will further doom the tourism industry. To wit, the AP reported:

"Our tourism-based economy here in Nevada is hemorrhaging jobs," said one of the GOP opponents, Assemblyman Ty Cobb of Reno. "I think it's going to hurt rather than help."

Look for the R-J editorial board tomorrow to praise the seven dissenters and predict doom. But I ask you, since so many of you readers here are tourists: Would you really not come here if your $100 room cost $3 more?

Just wondering. The State Senate still has to vote on this.

Drunk Cats, Sugar Sculptures and Taxes

So sorry to have been off blog duty the past day or so, but it's rough getting back to normal after all that hullabaloo. Plus, I haven't done my taxes yet and that's fast approaching, so right now as I type I am psyching myself up to look at my records and figure out what I need to give my accountant.

Which is as good a time as any to share this, a precious 12-second video of "Petcast" guest host Molly Ball's cat tasting Scotch. (And speaking of "The Petcast," the latest episode, in which Molly and Emily debate the ethics of using sea animals in counterterrorism efforts, is online.)

Besides, that, I thought this was pretty cool -- a mammoth sugar sculpture display recently unveiled in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton at Lake Las Vegas. What's more, it's just the first of what is to become a seasonal display. Finally, a reason to go all the way out to Lake Las Vegas!

To crib from the press release: "Executive Pastry Chef Chris Hanmer designed and created two identical displays entitled, “An Unexpected Oasis” that are showcased in two separate wood and glass cases located in the hotel’s front lobby. Each showcases 45 orange and blue pieces created from 150 pounds of sugar. The entire project took Chef Hanmer more than 100 hours to craft by hand, using food coloring for the orange and blue hues. Hanmer began planning this project in October 2006, completing the sugar display creations in February. “When I lived in Washington, D.C., I often visited the Smithsonian Institute. There I discovered a true appreciation of modern art which became my inspiration for developing these pieces. Because I am a chef, it was the ideal way to combine my two passions – cooking and modern art,” says Hanmer.

Sounds like someone ELSE procrastinates instead of doing his taxes...