Having just returned from my 8th visit to the city of sin I can honestly say I am glad to be home. Usually, I return with an excitement to go back but I am stricken with relief sitting in the comforts of the Okanagan air turning crisp with the approaching Autumn season, not a cigarette to be smelled or a slot machine in earshot. 

On this blog I usually focus on the culinary adventures I’ve had and expose places, people and locations my readers would be interested in, but this post is different because Vegas was different this time. It had lost it’s sheen and alluring glow. Most of the casinos were absolutely dead inside and the lack of people was startling especially during Labour Day weekend. As a Canadian, we aren’t in the thick of the collapsed economy like our neighbours to the south or Europe. 

What Las Vegas revealed to me this time around was something more shocking than the lack of busy tables and slots. This visit was the first time I had decided to go to a club to meet up with my sister’s friends. We had all bought tickets to see a “one of a kind performance” by Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover who plays Troy on Community. The club let us in at 10:30 or so with many girls getting in for free which irritated me considering each ticket was over $50 online. 

The club, 1 Oak, was packed and had a ton of V.I.P tables where mostly men in suits would dole out $4500 in one hundred dollar bills for the bottle of Grey Goose and personal service they received. Twenty-somethings danced and drank as I awaited for the performance to begin. 2 am rolled around and still no Childish Gambino let alone any mention of him from the DJ. I was beginning to think the entire night was a hoax to get us through the door to pay for overpriced drinks. (I am in the process of getting a refund thanks to my insured purchases under my Visa).

But what really irritated me, what really saddened me and made me sick to my stomach was a group of men and one girl preying on young girls with the GHB drug. The set up was one of the men would select a girl to dance with and grope. Finally, if there was any trouble from the girl’s boyfriend or friends the one female in their crew would befriend the girl and somehow get her to drink some bottled water she had. In this case, the girl had pulled the hair back and forced water down this poor girls throat. I even saw her try and reach in for the girls’ wallet but luckily a friend stepped in. Not two minutes later she was barely able to speak let alone walk. Her friends got the girl out of the club and, I hope, safely home. 

For this reason I will never go to another Vegas club. I am not a big “clubber” in the first place and usually the promise of creepy douche bags are enough to keep me away. The sight made me sickened by the people that surrounded me dancing into the night. We all left after the incident paranoid of everyone, every bump of the shoulder, even the bar tenders and bouncers. 

I know I have heralded Las Vegas before but that was because I didn’t see such ugly behaviour and the fact that another girl was in on it made me very upset. My website usually celebrates the amazing experiences I am able to have during my trips and at restaurants (with the occasional negative review thrown in) but I decided to write about this because it was so alarming and just maybe I could encourage one girl to be more careful than usual. It could have easily been me who was slipped the spiked drink but luckily it wasn’t. Call me paranoid but I will never go to a club again, especially a Las Vegas club, because I don’t ever want my luck to run out.