SEARCH NEWS:

 

Heightened Casino Security Continues

LAS VEGAS -- Security types ask questions. They don't typically answer them.

So there was Mirage security director Jim Blair cautiously fielding a series of inquiries from a news reporter about post-Sept. 11 security at his Strip megaresort.

Yes, his staff continues to check vehicles entering the hotel-casino's parking garage.

They eye drivers' licenses. They look inside large vehicles with tinted windows, searching for anything that poses potential security threats.

Gasoline cans on the back of vehicles, leaky packages, anything with batteries attached generate red flags.

Yes, the occasional vehicle has been turned away because of a driver lacking proper ID, but nothing's been confiscated.

No knives. No guns. No nail clippers.

"We're not in the confiscation business," Blair recently said. "We're in the business of protecting people and employees. We're looking for anything that might give us reason to raise our senses."

What else are they looking for?

"I'm not going to go there," he warned.

Casino companies throughout Las Vegas upped their security levels following the jetliner attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

It's not unusual to pull into The Mirage or Paris Las Vegas or Venetian parking areas and have a uniformed guard give a quick check of a driver's license and eye a vehicle's back seat or trunk for anything suspicious.

The checks slow the visits, especially during busy hours, but are designed to protect the properties and raise customer confidence.

A Las Vegas police spokesman said Wednesday no information was readily available as to whether the checks have led to any arrests.

Park Place Entertainment security boss Jim Darcy said his company has provided "information to authorities as they requested" in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, but like his Mirage colleague, Darcy was unwilling to provide specifics.

"You don't want to be overly restrictive in their movements," Darcy said of his megaresorts' customers. "It's a heightened awareness."

University of Pennsylvania Professor Stephen Gale, who has studied worldwide terrorism for 25 years, said the security efforts are sincere.

"I don't think they're being superficial and doing it for show," Gale said. "They're doing what most people would do. They recognize certain dangers and are protecting themselves from it."

But ultimately, he noted, there is only so much businesses can do to protect themselves and their interests.

As proof, he recalls a meeting he had two years ago with the head of security for the Federal Aviation Administration. Gale was joined by security experts from Exxon and naval intelligence.

He said they warned the FAA executive of a potential threat to domestic security - the use of commercial airliners as missiles that could destroy skyscrapers.

"We didn't know that someone was inventing that action at that time," Gale recalled.

That's exactly the challenge faced by Darcy, the Mirage's Blair and security experts for tens of thousands of businesses throughout the world. No one is certain who is inventing what terror threat for what site.

Chatting with Blair provides an intellectual challenge for anyone seeking information he doesn't want to offer.

He's a 25-year military veteran. Rose to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Held a top job at Nellis Air Force Base; doesn't want the public to know what it was. He's been at the Mirage for six years.

The guy speaks in the respectful, guarded tone of someone who has made a career out of military service. His sentences are peppered with the phrases, "Yes sir. No sir."

His goal: "Anything that you do from a deterrent standpoint that shows you are alert and doing your best to enhance security."

He continued speaking with his just-the-facts delivery.

"You try to do everything you can, and what we've already talked about is just one or two steps of a total series of things that we've done at the Mirage."

For instance?

"That's where we'll leave it," Blair admonished his questioner.

< Gaming News