Tourists don’t want to pay for new arena

To the editor:

Regarding Sunday's letter from Bruce Woodbury claiming that tourists would pay for a new arena: We don't want to pay for your arena.

Las Vegas recently instituted a 3 percentage-point increase in the hotel room tax, and now it wants to have me help pay for a sports arena?

The same casinos that make hundreds of millions of dollars a year claim that a sports arena will make everything rainbows and lollipops, but they don't want to pay for it. Well, tourists don't want to pay for it, either.

My wife and I visited Las Vegas in June, but only because we got two nights from our casino and one from our hotel rewards program. I will not pay the higher room tax and would rather gamble across the river in Iowa than be extorted by Las Vegas.

Tourists already pay up to 40 percent in taxes and "fees" on rental cars, so adding more taxes isn't going to make more people want to visit.

The whole country is full of Las Vegas lovers who wish you the very best. But please don't try to make us pay for your schools and sporting arenas.

Peter Maas

Omaha, Neb.

Go elsewhere

To the editor:

I wish Bruce Woodbury, my former county commissioner and a man I admire, would have explained in his Sunday letter -- after explaining that shopping venues such as the Boulevard mall would not be included in the proposed arena tax district -- what the tax would mean to shoppers, tourists and locals alike.

In the designated zone, this tax would add an additional 90 cents to a $100 purchase over the regular sales tax. Eighteen cents to a $20 purchase. Why is anyone getting excited over these amounts?

If they bother anyone, they can simply go to stores and businesses outside the tax zone.

Richard J. Mundy

Las Vegas