(26 Apr 2020) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: apus134968
Slot machines are powered down, casinos boarded up and barricaded.
Sidewalks are largely deserted and electronic marquees that once flashed neon calls for nightclubs, magic shows and topless revues instead beam somber messages of safety.
The famous fountains of the Bellagio casino, where water choreographed to lights and music shoots hundreds of feet in the air, are still. Throngs of visitors who made it tough to maneuver on sidewalks have been replaced by the occasional jogger or skateboarder.
Instead of hosting throngs of visitors for one of the busiest seasons of the year, with March Madness drawing swarms to sportsbooks, or the now-scuttled plan to host the NFL draft this weekend, ferrying players in boats to a red carpet stage on the Bellagio lake, Las Vegas is trying to survive.
Nevada's tourism, leisure, hospitality and gambling industry accounts for one in three jobs in the state - making the state more dependent on tourism than Alaska on oil.
Workers are expected to lose $7.7 billion in wages and salaries over the next 18 months if the tourism industry is shuttered between 30 and 90 days, according to a study from the Nevada Resort Association.
With the industry effectively closed for more than five weeks now, more than 343,000 residents have filed for unemployment, and state and local governments could lose more than $1 billion in tax revenues.
While about 24% of the state's workforce has filed for unemployment benefits since March 21, that doesn't include waves of others who haven't been able to get through the overburdened system. Nor does it include the self-employed and gig workers, who are newly eligible for benefits under a federal aid package that the state is scrambling to accommodate. Nevada officials say the state may not have a website ready for them to seek benefits until mid-May.
At dusk falls and dim lights start glow, many locals slowly drive several miles of the Strip, with their car windows rolled down and phones raised to photograph and film America's most flamboyant party reduced to a vacant, muted spectacle, a post-apocalyptic remnant of a time before social distancing and stay-at-home orders, when excess and wild attractions were the main draw.
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