Ah, Las Vegas. As I have called it here many times, a bug light for mischief. Its lure is so irresistible to so many. But beware its famous one-time marketing slogan, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” It simply isn’t true. Just review my documented inventory nearby of candidates for my path-breaking list, It Didn’t Stay Here. These are folks who got in trouble somewhere else for something that happened in Las Vegas. It’s a long roster going back nearly a decade that contains some very famous names.
The latest nominees are mainly drawn from a group of California wine industry executives recently accused of conspiring to use bribery and then cover-ups to control placement of wine products on supermarket shelves in California. By now, you can probably figure out where some of that alleged bribe money was allegedly spent. Being indicted in California for stuff said to have happened in Las Vegas is definitely trouble elsewhere.
The indictment, the cover page of which is nearby, was returned by a federal grand jury in Oakland, Calif., as part of a long-running investigation. It accuses five ex-executives of Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the country’s largest liquor distributor, or wholesaler, of what amounts to commercial bribery in providing the gifts over an eight-year period ending in 2024. The alleged idea was to get shelf space for new brands at Albertsons, one of the country’s largest supermarket chains. Although Albertsons has a number of locations in Las Vegas, it does not appear from the indictment any of the “hot wine” got placed here, or elsewhere in Nevada.
But the indictment describes several interesting journeys to Sin City. Continue reading
At the New to Las Vegas world headquarters today, I received by text message the nearby slightly-redacted-by-me “California Superior Court Subpoena” concerning a “toll violation” in our adjoining state. It’s a scam. But sadly, as I discovered, neither the California court system nor the California Department of Motor Vehicles website has a good and quick way to report this mischief, which obviously tarnishes their good names.
Everyone knows about “Viva Las Vegas.” That was the hit 1964 movie pairing a sizzling Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret (in real life, too, if you believe the gossip) in a romantic tale of two race-car drivers chasing the same girl. The signature song of the same name remains something of a local national anthem. Despite filming much of the movie on location around Las Vegas (including in the gymnasium of what would become UNLV), the world premier actually was in New York City.