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Las Vegas Roundup

LAS VEGAS -- Venetian security boss Dave Shepherd said the Strip megaresort is constantly analyzing the security levels needed to counter potential threats.

Some days that means checking vehicles entering the hotel-casino's parking garage.

Some high-profile days, including New Year's Eve, that means renting a bomb-sniffing dog, a purchase Stratosphere executives recently made for round-the-clock security.

"I can't see what their threat is," the former FBI special agent said of his Stratosphere counterparts. "We could probably have one here if we wanted based on the conventions coming in, based on the threats, whatever."

On a typical day, an estimated 20,000 people pass through the Venetian. On a busy day that figure can balloon to 80,000.

"You have to do as much as you can to make people feel safe and comfortable," Shepherd said.

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TRIVIA TIME: What year did the old Hacienda hotel-casino open at the south end of the Strip?

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HOLY ROLLER: The Washington Post recently wrote of the passing of a New England priest.

"The Rev. Joseph R. Fahey, 65, a master fundraiser and gambler who was the principal assistant for finance of the New England province of the Jesuit order, died Jan. 16 in Boston after an apparent heart attack," read the newspaper obituary about the man.

"As president of Boston College High School from 1988 to 1998, he boosted endowment by 500 percent and became blacklisted at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, for his work at the blackjack tables, where he said he gambled 'all for the greater glory of God.' "

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WASHINGTON POST PART II: A recent NBC-TV special commemorating the 25th anniversary of the airing of the "Roots" miniseries left a Washington Post writer reminiscing about the show's Las Vegas ties.

"More than 130 million people watched all or part of the series - so many the Nielsen rating service at first didn't believe its own figures and double-checked them; so many that casinos in Las Vegas had to change the hours of their shows to attract an audience," read the article.

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TRIVIA ANSWER: The Hacienda opened in June 1956 and was imploded on New Year's Eve 1997 to make way for Mandalay Bay.

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QUOTABLE: "The hypocrisy of college athletics is responsible for modern basketball degenerating into the slot machine racket of sports." - New York City sportswriting legend Jimmy Cannon in a 1951 newspaper article recently rerun in the New York Post.

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