The second story I want to tell goes back so far into the Vegas nightlife past that Pure hadn’t opened and the nightclubs that are now gone included RA and C2K.

One afternoon, a well established nightclub promoter invited me to go behind the scenes as he negotiated a deal with a casino owner.

I was picked up at the offices of Las Vegas Weekly by the promoter who drove at a ridiculous speed. He  handed me a tiny bag on the way with a white powder in it. The bag was not closed and the window was down on his side causing the powder to fly all over me as he explained that it was cocaine. I apparently–though I did not recall doing so–told him once I had never tried cocaine and he took that as a challenge to fix the “problem.” But the powder left the bag and was blown all onto my shirt and pants. That is when the police pulled us over. Amazingly, the nightclub promoter was driving on a learner’s permit. Fortunately the officer was concerned with his speed and did not ask about the white powder covering me. Does it count as possession if the blow is blown on to you?

The final surprise: The “casino owner” turned out to be the teenage son of a majority owner of a Strip casino. That did not stop the kid from calling the place “his casino.” But his main goal seemed to be to get his underage friends into the events the promoter did at other properties. In exchange, he dangled the possibility of convincing his dad to build a club for the promoter to run at “his” casino. It was totally nutty. And, I will say that particular promoter is no longer doing nightlife in Vegas.