City Cast Las Vegas

If you follow any kind of Vegas news online, the algorithms will inevitably surface  “gambling influencers” on your social media feeds. These are typically accounts that livestream hours and hours of slot play — with millions and millions of views. It’s a new phenomenon, casino industry expert Scott Roeben (AKA Vital Vegas) tells co-host Dayvid Figler. And casinos aren’t quite sure what to do with...

Should animal abusers be put on a publicly-available registry, much like sex offenders are? That’s what one bill recently proposed in the legislature wants to do — but as always, we’ve got some hot takes on that proposal. Today on City Cast Las Vegas, co-host Dayvid Figler sits down with producer Layla Muhammad and Nevada Current reporter April Corbin to talk about the week of news. After discussi...

As Vegas creeps towards warmer weather, we find ourselves in the perfect season for brunch. But this is the entertainment capital of the world, so we can’t just brunch — in this city we turn every occasion into a party. The Review Journal’s restaurant reporter Johnathan Wright and co-host Vogue Robinson share their thoughts on the “party brunch,” how brunch culture has taken a turn, and their favo...

On the heels of the February closure of Village Square, the one movie theater in town that would regularly play indie films, a new theater opened its doors: The Beverly is a glamorous, brand-new construction with top-of-the-line tech. It’s also privately-funded by noted Vegas philanthropist Bev Rogers. So where Village Square failed, can the Beverly succeed? Founding creative director Kip Kelly th...

Yes, Las Vegas lights are visible from space and yes, you aren’t going to see much of the night sky from the middle of town. But, as David Blanchette, vice president of special events at the Las Vegas Astronomical Society, tells co-host Dayvid Figler, the open desert just beyond the light dome of our city is a fantastic place to view the night sky. He spills the beans on some great out-of-the-way...

Mojave Max is Las Vegas’s most elusive celebrity… literally. Like all desert tortoises, he spends 95% of his life underground. But as every Vegas schoolchild knows, the day that Mojave Max emerges from his winter brumation (that’s the reptilian version of hibernation), spring officially begins. Today on City Cast Las Vegas, as we await Mojave Max’s return, we’re bringing back a favorite conversati...

Vegas icons Siegfried and Roy’s massive jungle-theme palace has been put up for sale for $3 million. Does this signify the end to the over the top, kitschy Vegas era that the late performers made their mark on? Also, CCSD takes on the fight against vaping in a lawsuit against e-cigarette maker Juul and a new proposed bill sparks debate between craft beer breweries and distributors. Co-hosts Vogue...

We’re “Mariana Trench” deep when it comes to the state of mental health in Nevada, Dr. Jim Jobin, psychotherapist and co-host of PodTherapy, tells CCLV co-host Dayvid Figler. That might sound like hyperbole, but it’s backed up with data: Nevada ranks 51st in the nation for access to mental health. But why? Why is it so hard for us keep providers in the state, and how do our current insurance laws...

Las Vegas is one of the most well-known destinations in the world, yet the best known works about the city are mainly from visitors who don’t always get things right. Co-Hosts Vogue Robinson and Dayvid Figler are both accomplished writers living in Las Vegas who struggle with biases and expectations about how Las Vegas can or should be depicted. At this very special live taping at the brand new Be...

Did y’all know that the four-time national goatee championship winner lives in Las Vegas? Patrick Dawson settled in Vegas and co-founded the Sin City Beard Coalition with his wife, Lori Fries — and as it turns out, Lori is a bit of a beard aficionado herself. In beard and mustache competitions, “whiskerinas” are an entire category of creative beard-ing for the biologically whiskerless (Lori once m...

It seems someone dropped Australian redclaw crayfish into the Wetlands Park, and that’s bad news for the native fish. They’re currently contained in a couple of ponds, and the Nevada Department of Wildlife is trying to remove them before they spread. Agency spokesman Doug Nielsen explains to co-host Vogue Robinson the danger they pose to the local environment, and how we can prevent this in the fu...

Co-host Dayvid Figler leads our Friday news round up with producer Layla Muhammad and publisher of thelist.vegas, Andrew Kiraly. They unpack major plans to bring the Rio Hotel and Casino back to life, a surprising turn of events in the trial of Robert Telles, and the impact of the Rock N Roll Marathon on Las Vegans. Don’t forget: Come see City Cast Las Vegas live at the opening of The Beverly Thea...

March is Women’s History Month — and Las Vegas has no shortage of trailblazing women who have helped make our city what it is today. In this conversation originally aired last fall, co-host Vogue Robinson sits down with Su Kim Chung, Head of Public Services in Special Collections and Archives at UNLV, to talk about her shortlist of Las Vegas women. Essentially: If Las Vegas were to have its own Mt...

We all have our list of places to take people in Vegas that we like, but what about those we hate? Whether it’s an ex or that drunk tourist who won’t leave you alone, co-host Dayvid Figler and producers Sonja Cho Swanson and Layla Muhammad are here with their recs for where to go to have the best terrible day in Vegas. Where are you sending your enemy in Las Vegas? Let us know in a voicemail at 70...

At the end of last year, the Aria closed its buffet and opened up a food hall in its place. And not long after Station Casinos famously (notoriously?) announced that their buffets would never return, their plans for Durango Station, opening this fall, came out — featuring Eat Your Heart Out, a buzzy new food hall… and no buffet. So why are food halls all the rage now, and is this the death knell o...

Did someone say burlesque baking show?! Vegas entertainers Anaïs Thomassian, Melody Sweets, and Melissa King-Jules aka MsTickle bring us Sweets Spots TV. After performing on the Strip in Absinthe and other Vegas venues for over 7 years, these creators took their live show concept and made it work as a hilarious online series full of talking puppets, flying blueberry pies, and a very evil donut. Co...

For today’s roundup of the news, co-hosts Vogue Robinson and Dayvid Figler are joined by contributor Michael “MJ” Lyle, a reporter at the Nevada Current. First up: A recent video of CCSD police arresting several Black students and throwing one to the ground while shouting an expletive went viral — community organizations have since rallied. So what’s at the heart of this recurring tension, and wha...

News reports and social media are awash with photos and videos of coyotes roaming the streets of Las Vegas — but why? Are we in the middle of a coyote population boom, is climate change driving them out of their natural habitat, or are we simply moving into the coyotes’ neighborhoods? Today, co-host Dayvid Figler sits down with UNLV wildlife ecologist Dr. David Choate, who explains why we’re seein...

The Vegas Loop is an underground tunnel system connecting the Las Vegas Convention Center halls and two properties on the north end of the Strip by Tesla rides. Elon Musk’s Boring Company got approval from the Clark County Commission in 2021 to expand the tunnels to connect downtown, the airport, and Allegiant Stadium. As construction plans move forward this year, is this private venture a solutio...

Rents are crazy high, evictions are spiking, and now federal rent assistance is scaling back drastically. Today, co-host Dayvid Figler talks with Legal Aid Executive Director Barbara Buckley, who is predicting a “tsunami” of housing insecurity in Las Vegas in the next 60 days — Legal Aid has already seen the number of clients seeking housing advice at their free legal clinic nearly double recently...

In today’s roundup of the news, co-host Dayvid Figler is joined by lead producer Sonja Cho Swanson and newsletter editor Scott Dickensheets and we’re covering a lot of ground: First up, what the departure of the last Mirage dolphins means for Las Vegas and our particular brand of spectacle (and why keeping cetaceans in the Mojave miiiiight have been not such a great idea after all). Next, we get i...

Nevada lawmakers in DC say they’re on board with President Biden’s new Junk Fee Prevention Act, announced last week, with one exception: The resort fees charged by “our world-class casinos and hotels,” which they say are up front and transparent. But resort fees can double or even triple the nightly cost of a hotel room here in Vegas — and if you’ve heard from any tourists lately, they’re not happ...

Cheyenne Kyle is a classically-trained chef with Strip credentials, a master gardener, and an entrepreneur. But when the pandemic hit, like so many others in our hospitality-centric city, she lost two jobs in one day — helping others find food during that tough time, she says, kept her going. So joining the Obodo Collective, a Black women-led nonprofit, in starting a farm in the historic Westside...

If you’re out here trying to be single and mingle in Las Vegas, we feel for you — it’s not easy, anywhere. But is it extra-hard in our city? After all, we’re a big little town of 2.5 million locals and 42 million visitors every year, and tourists tend to clog up the dating apps. Or is the problem that we’re actually a small town, and you see the same faces everywhere? Today, lead producer Sonja Ch...

Egg prices are outta control — they doubled over the course of 2022. So that’s got a lot of Las Vegans asking themselves… should we get backyard chickens? Award-winning food writer and backyard chicken wrangler Kim Foster joins co-host Vogue Robinson today to talk about why you should (and shouldn’t) raise chickens, and everything it takes to do it right in the extreme weather conditions of Las Ve...