Welcome to Fabulous Los Angeles II

Is it just us, or are we -- proud Southern Nevadans all -- becoming firmly, inescapably, irredeemably plunged into an L.A. state of mind?

Los Angeles-based eateries -- from In-N-Out Burger to Original Tommy's to Pink's to Wolfgang Puck's soupcon of upscale restaurants -- continue to spring up here like chanterelles after a Parisian rain.

Retailers and entertainment purveyors with L.A. pedigrees, ranging from the Ron Herman clothing boutiques to the Pussycat Dolls Lounge at Caesars Palace, have made the eastward trek across the Mojave like fashion-conscious pioneers to a new promised land.

And let's not even discuss the traffic jams, suburban sprawl and other sundry hassles of cosmopolitan life L.A. expatriates have brought with them to our once-sedate, Western-flavored state.

Now, we make no judgments here, other than to note that its gotten weird living in a place that's so SoCal-like, seeing as how we're sure our cross-country AAA TripTik ended at I-15 and Spring Mountain Road.

And, to be fair, some would quibble with our thesis that Las Vegas has become a bit too Los Angelesized.

"Is that really fair, seeing as how Las Vegas is, like, the megacity for tourists from all over the world?" asks Brent Maire of Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers, which opens its first Nevada restaurant in mid-November.

Point taken. Still, it's not like visitors from Canada have prompted anyone around here to start pronouncing "about" weirdly.

Granted, none of this is particularly new, even if it does seem to have hit warp speed over the past decade or so. Dave Millman, director of the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas, notes that there have been "historical ties" between L.A. and L.V. for decades.

Los Angelenos long have come to Las Vegas for vacations, marriages and divorces, he says, and, "in the early part of the century, it was a lot easier to get to L.A. (from Las Vegas) than it was to get to Reno or Carson City, as far as train travel or plane travel."

Thanks to easy highway access from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Hollywood's actors and actress, then and now, came to Vegas for work and play. That, Millman says, helped to create a still-strong "Hollywood, celebrity-type connection between Los Angeles and Las Vegas."

Many of the Strip's legendary resorts -- and a good chunk of Las Vegas architecture in general -- were designed by Los Angeles architects, Millman says, and, in sports, "this was always generally a Dodgers town and a Lakers town."

Las Vegas "has always had more ties with L.A. than it has had with Reno or Carson City," notes Millman, who was himself raised in Los Angeles and moved here in 1975.

In fact, most Las Vegans -- particularly those of more recent vintage -- probably think little, if at all, about Northern Nevada anymore. Nevada Day, the other holiday that falls on Oct. 31, is "much bigger in the north than it is here," Millman says.

But it doesn't take a demographer to figure out the most likely reason Las Vegas now bears a strong Los Angeles vibe: The glut of former Los Angelenos who've chosen to make Las Vegas their home.

Housing is cheaper here, taxes are less taxing here, traffic jams are (still) less ugly here and the cost of living is still more affordable here. And, Millman says, Las Vegas is "close enough to L.A. that you've moved away from it, but you're still in the general area. You're a short plane ride away."

Tom West, operations manager at Pink's, the legendary L.A. hot dog stand, says Vegas-bound Los Angelenos long have been calling Pink's to find out where the Las Vegas Pink's was located.

In late September, the answer will be Planet Hollywood Resort, where Pink's new hot dog stand not only will sate displaced Southern Californians' cravings for chili dogs but create a new market among tourists and locals who were born east of the Rockies. West -- who also owns a home in Las Vegas -- first visited Las Vegas in 1962 and has been coming here regularly since the mid-'70s. Even he's surprised at the how strangely familiar Southern Nevada has become.

"I look out and I see the In-N-Out and Fatburger and all these places, and I feel like I'm back in L.A.," he says.

West estimates that 40 percent of the license plates he sees here are California plates. "I think companies realized this is like a second home for L.A. people," he says. "This gives them something they liked in L.A. and brings it over to Las Vegas."

When Ron Herman Inc. was looking for a location for its first boutique outside of the Los Angeles area, Las Vegas seemed perfect. Last week, Las Vegas' first Ron Herman boutique opened in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

Las Vegas is "a huge tourist destination, so we're definitely getting a broader range of customer that we might not necessarily get here (in L.A.)," said Samantha Gilman, the company's manager of operations.

But Ron Herman also expects to develop a clientele of locals, too. "We just feel like the local Las Vegas customer is pretty similar to the customer we shoot for here in Los Angeles," Gilman says.

"But, definitely, Las Vegas has kind of become Hollywood's playground, so there's the glamour and the glitz, and everyone comes to Las Vegas, so why not be where the action is?"

Las Vegas, Gilman says, "feels like it's the after-hours party of Los Angeles."

Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers plans to open its first Nevada restaurant in November at 3009 St. Rose Parkway. Maire says the restaurant will serve a primarily locals clientele.

Las Vegas does have a "huge tourist base," Maire continues, but "that really isn't the base that drives us. It's not the tourist base, it's the locals, the people who are living there."

Given Southern Nevada's already strong Los Angeles vibe, is there a danger that we Las Vegans eventually may lose our identity as Nevadans?

Millman's not sure. But already, he says, "a lot of Las Vegans, unfortunately -- and I think it is unfortunate -- don't think of themselves as Nevadans, because they've come here from other places and they're still loyal to their original state, or their experience in Nevada is Las Vegas, and not Ely or Elko or Carson City or Reno.

"I don't know whether the Los Angelesization of Las Vegas contributes to that or not," he says.

But wouldn't it be bizarre, Millman wonders, if 20 years from now, "maybe Coyote Springs or Mesquite will become the new Las Vegas and be what people are escaping to?"