Internet Explorer 11 is not supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Less Than Thrilled

The "not in my backyard" syndrome typically applies to landfills or sewage-treatment facilities. But Las Vegas is not your typical community and neither is the NIMBY situation there. In the case of Sin City, residents have been fighting over the placement of a thrill ride.

The "not in my backyard" syndrome typically applies to landfills or sewage-treatment facilities. But Las Vegas is not your typical community and neither is the NIMBY situation there. In the case of Sin City, residents have been fighting over the placement of a thrill ride.

The "amusement device" was to be like a ski jump. The Stratosphere Casino Hotel and Tower, at the north end of the famous street known as "The Strip," originally planned to build a 740-foot-tall, roller- coaster-type ride that would launch riders across Las Vegas Boulevard at 120 miles per hour into its own parking lot.

Considering this is a city where pedestrians use outdoor escalators to cross the glittery streets, fountains squirt in time to music and there's possibly more neon on the face of one hotel than in the entire state of Wyoming, some people might question how one more novelty attraction could generate so much opposition.

The problem, explains City Councilman Gary Reese, is that there are homes right across the street from the Stratosphere, something that is not the case around other hotels farther south on the strip, and neighbors worried the ride would be unsightly and possibly dangerous. "The return for the ride would have been right in the neighborhood," says Reese. "Residents thought it would look like scaffolding."

In trying to appease opponents, ride designers changed the dimensions, downsizing it by 31 percent. But the city council unanimously voted it down. Now, the Stratosphere is thinking about pursuing the matter in court. "We've never been given a reason why not," says Mike Gilmartin, spokesman for the property. "All we ever heard through the process was, 'We just don't want it.' There has to be something more."

Special Projects