Amazing surveillance story in LV Review-Journal ADDENDUM

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 16th, 2007

Norm Clarke’s column from the 14th had this item:

Two sources confirmed on Tuesday that the Sahara had surveillance cameras installed about two years ago in the dressing room of headliner Amazing Johnathan.

The hidden cameras were put in shortly after a small fire broke out in the comedy magician’s dressing room in May 2005, said the sources, who worked on the Sahara’s surveillance staff.

Management “went on a witch hunt,” said one of the sources. The fire occurred about a week after Amazing Johnathan opened at the Sahara.

After four months, the cameras were removed from the dressing room and another room, when “they couldn’t find anything to use against him,” said a source.

Bookmark Norm! if you want to know what’s going on in Vegas.

The Sahara has been purchased by… does it matter by whom? One need not be an expert in these matters to project that it will join the Stardust in Casino Heaven sometime soon. The revolution continues.

Editors note: We received the following shortly after posting the above, from Christopher Ritter, Johnathan’s manager:

As manager of the Amazing Johnathan, I thought I would write in response to your recent story.

Although I can’t comment at all on legal issues, I thought I would pass along my speculation that the Sahara will not actually be joining the Stardust in casino heaven anytime soon.

If anything, the working theory some insiders have is that the new owners of the Sahara will build up a new hotel across the street on the empty 17.5 acre SW corner of Sahara and the Strip. The idea being that they would have that completed before either imploding or remodeling the original site–and all of this would seem to be at least a few years away.

My understanding is that the keys won’t even be changing hands to the new majority owner (31 year old Sam Nazarian) until January due to a provision in the late owner’s will that stated that his heirs could not sell for a period of five years, an increment of time that will conclude this coming December.

As for the Amazing Johnathan, his contract with the Sahara is set to expire in December and at that point he will be retiring.

We are however, currently considering an offer to have him in star in a television project and on a side note, his memoirs are now about 99 percent complete.

He currently works five nights per week (dark Wednesdays and Thursdays) performing his 10pm show upstairs in the Conga Room.

May will mark his two year anniversary there at the Sahara.

Like Rita Rudner, Penn Jillette and Teller, he has been a resident Vegas headliner since 2001.

(Johnathan’s tours of duty were at the Golden Nugget, the Flamingo, the Golden Nugget again, the Riviera and the Sahara)

Thank you for your blog. I’ve had it bookmarked for some time now and greatly appreciate your work.

Christopher Ritter

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