New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas is one of the largest events in the country. The celebration is a time when the LVPPA gets to perform a few duties that are a flat-out pleasure for us and our members.
For the third consecutive year, we stationed ourselves at different locations on the Strip and downtown to ensure our members were kept fed and warm. We firmly believe that everything we do is a work in progress, and we attempt to come up with better ways to serve our membership. We had three different locations, each overseen by our staff. Tony Munoz, owner of 911 Tacos, was hired to make sure the food was flowing and no one went hungry. Each location was set up with hot chocolate, coffee, energy drinks, hand warmers and plenty of good food. The PPA staff even went so far as to deliver food to locations we could reach. Not to leave anyone out, the PPA also purchased pizza and wings for CCDC, as we wanted to ensure that the hardworking officers there had a meal as well.
Logistically, it is difficult to ensure we are reaching as many of our officers as we can. But through careful planning and a lot of support from our members, we were able to provide food to hundreds of our officers. The work is hard but rewarding, and I enjoy interacting with the officers who are tasked to protect our city on New Year’s Eve. The officers do an outstanding job of maintaining control and keeping everyone safe. The looks of thanks and the kind words our officers give us make the whole endeavor worthwhile. We estimated that more than a thousand officers were fed that night, and we can only hope that next year we can find a way to reach even more.