Remember how the Union Plaza used to be on track for a “grand soft reopening” (love that phrase!) on August 24? Somewhere along the way, that target date fell by the wayside. Solution? Generate a blizzard of stories like this one — and many others — in which the August date has mysteriously vanished and now the reopening date is September 1, period, and somehow “ahead of schedule.” Now one of the banes of the casino industry is Ye Olde Squishy-Soft Opening, of which Sheldon Adelson is the ninja master. If your property’s not ready for the paying public, it shouldn’t open. Why subject customers to a prettified construction site? (It had litigious consequences for Adelson’s Marina Bay Sands.) If Play LV CEO Anthony Santo is going to be really, truly, completely ready on Sept. 1, 2011, then let the games begin! If he starts a trend, better still.
Of course, this may run a cart and horses througSanto’s plan to have Insurgo Theater Movement debut in its new Plaza space that same night. There’s nothing that would keep the theater crowd at home like having to compete with the banzai charge of gamblers pouring onto a minty-fresh casino floor. But it’s good to know that Santo, like the new owners of Buffalo Bill’s, complemented his acquisition of Fontainebleau hotel furnishings with a redo of the slot floor (one of the few perceptible improvements down in Primm). Slots are a casino’s first line of defense and getting the staleness out of the Plaza’s casino is even more important than expunging it from the hotel towers.
