8A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
BUSINESS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3. 2006
Hooters opens Las Vegas casino
BY RYAN NAKASHIMA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS — Hooters the tongue-in-cheek eater that parlayed spicy chicken wings and busty waitresses in skimpy outfits into an international restaurant chain, is opening its first ever casino and hotel a stone's throw from the Las Vegas Strip.
The grand opening Thursday marks the latest foray for the "delightfully tacky, yet unrefined" restaurant that began in 1983 in Clearwater, Fla., and later branched into calendars, merchandise and even an airline.
The Hooters customer is al— ready a Vegas kind of customer. They're a little punky, they're a little high energy, they're looking for a getaway — and all of those things just match up," said Ed Droste, one of the six men
who founded Hooters. Four of those original partners together own a third of the renovated hotel-casino.
The 696-room property with nine restaurant/bars is a revamp of the hotel San Remo and, despite its makeover, remains a midget compared with the 5,035-room MGM Grand across the street on a corner of the Strip that offers 14,000 hotel rooms.
The Hotel San Remo, first built in 1973, has been run for the past 17 years by the Izumi family of Japan who maintained a one-third stake in the rebranded business.
The San Remo's revenues and profits stagnated for at least the past five years, dwarfed in the shadow of the MGM Grand, New York-New York, Excalibur and Tropicana hotels on the nearest corner.
"San Remo was a nice little business," said Richard Langlois, senior vice president of marketing for Hooters Casino Hotel. "But the property can be better utilized with a brand like Hooters."
Hooters' operators hope to draw from a customer base of about 61 million annual visitors at its some 400 restaurants in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Asia and the Caribbean.
Information and reservation hot lines have been set up at 80 restaurants in the Southwest, and staff will be rewarded with discounts and free rooms for promoting bookings, executives said.
Talks are ongoing with Hooters of America Inc. to fly customers to Las Vegas on Hooters Air, they said. The Atlanta-based company bought the franchise
and licensing rights from the founder and launched the airline in 2003.
Hoot rs casino operators have re branded almost every inch of the hotel, including using s b tly placed borderline gags ab out the female form to appeal a core audience of mostly married men aged 25 to 54.
Obsevers said the company mightc arve out a niche with a down-market offering in an area of the trip that has become more exensive.
"You know their market.
It's rela lively blue collar and young," said University of Nevada, L es Vegas history professor Hal Rothman, who wrote "Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the 21st Century."
"There 's really nothing else on the trip that caters to that market, he said."
MUSIC INDUSTRY
BY DAVID BAUDER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — While one quarter of the nation's music fans say they've downloaded songs onto their computers — legally or otherwise — a new nationwide poll suggests music executives should look elsewhere to explain their business woes.
Three in every four fans complain that CDs are too expensive, and 58 percent complain that music in general is getting worse, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine.
"Less talented people are able to get a song out there and make a quick million and you never hear from them again," said Kate Simkins, 30, of Cape Cod, Mass.
Ipsos' telephone poll of 1,000 adults, including 963
music listeners, from all states except Alaska and Hawaii was conducted Jan. 23-25 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
It's been a bad few years for the music industry, knocked on its heels by the popularity of downloading and iPods.
A total of 618.9 million CD albums were sold during 2005, sharply down from the 762.8 million sold in 2001, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
At the same time, 352.7 million tracks were sold digitally in 2005, a category that wasn't even measured five years ago.
After years where fans had to buy $20 CDs because they liked one or two songs, now they can download the songs for 99 cents a pop, or free if they can burn a copy from a friend.
GROUNDHOG DAY
Punxie Phil sees his shadow
BY DAN NEPHIN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUNKSUTAWNEY, Pa. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, but it was hard to find a plainer in the crowd on Gobbler's Knob, where the morning temperature was well above freezing and Thursday's high was expected to hit 48 degrees.
There were a few boos at the groundhog's prediction of six more weeks of winter, but most of the hundreds of revelers instead turned the event into an impromptu Pittsburgh Steelers rally.
Fans in football jerseys sang "Here we go steelers," and
members of the Punxutawney Groundhog Club's inner Circle threw black and gold Steelers "Terrible Towels" as they waited to rouse Phil his burrow.
The furry forecaster may be popular, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
"It's been really wonderful. This is just a ball. I'm having so much fun," said Nancy Durr, who came from Paxton, Neb., to the small western Pennsylvania town about 65 miles north of Pittsburgh to celebrate her 50th birthday.
She had been outside awaiting Phil's arrival since about 2:15 a.m. a rub-on Punxutaw-
ney Phil tattoo on each cheek.
Others latched on to the Phil frenzy for a publicity boost.
The National Environmental Trust said it's groundhog-suit-wearing human "will ignore his shadow and will instead rise on global warming evidence to forecast an early spring."
The American Physiological Society was offering experts to discuss "What Punxsutawney Phil can teach us about surviving massive blood loss, preventing muscle atrophy, and more."
The Pennsylvania Lottery even has Gus, "the second most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania," who implores lottery players to "keep on scratchin'."
Punxsutawney Phil, the weather-predicting groundhog, is held by his handler Bill Deeley in front of an announced crowd of 14,000 who came to hear the prediction of six more weeks of winter in Punxsutawney, Pa. on Thursday.
Keith Srakocic/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS