Running The Gauntlet On The Strip

Walking down the strip used to be fairly easy apart from the crowds the only other thing that slowed you down was the time share salespeople as well as excursion people and the occasional people handing out dancer to your room cards. The time share people are mostly gone partly because of the economy and also many more have desks inside the resort. The number of people handing out dancer cards seems to have trippled which is annoying but I can live with that. But added to the number of people that bug you as you walk down the strip is the homeless on the overhead walkways as well as people selling water for $1 on them. The homeless making money to survive is understandable and I look at the water vendors as providing a service especially on the long hot days of a Las Vegas summer.  The last most common hawkers on the strip are people dressed in costumes where you pay to take pictures to them as well as the club pass vendors. The costume characters add color to the strip but I can see it getting to a point soon where this becomes a problem. Already as the numbers have increased I have see costume characters argueing with each other over customers which is amusing if they keep there costumes on but at some point could get worse. Several times I have seen costume characters get in a tourists face for taking a picture without paying them. The last group is the VIP line pass vendors who sell line passes to popular clubs these perticular vendors in some cases can be aggressive and don’t take no for an answer. I have often been asked why the City Of Las Vegas doesn’t do something about this situation well for a start the strip is in Clark County and not the city but the main reason neither body does is that it’s a free of speech issue. After a recent rulling it looks like these hawkers could soon be on the Fremont Street Experience as well im all for freedom of speech but at some point this will turn tourists away from Las Vegas.