REPORTERS’ NOTEBOOK

WEDNESDAY'S LAS VEGAS CITY COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS INCLUDED AN APPEARANCE BY SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN.

The council has recognized Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 as Hispanic Heritage Month, and two costumed Brazilian dancers showed up to mark the occasion. They were dressed in full Carnival regalia: elaborate feathered headdresses, sparkling high-heeled boots and tiny sequined bikinis.

Mayor Oscar Goodman ended the presentation by saying, "It's wonderful to have -- I know I'm going to get in trouble for this -- it's wonderful to have beautiful women up here."

Shortly afterward, Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian suggested that the mayor meant to say "beautiful, intelligent women."

Goodman quickly conceded the point: "I love beautiful, intelligent women more than life itself."

ALAN CHOATE

GOODMAN ALSO SAID LAST WEEK THAT HE FELT "DEFAMED" BY AN OP-ED COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, but the former criminal defense attorney isn't planning to sue over it.

Columnist Bob Herbert took aim at Goodman and the state of Nevada over legalized prostitution. He said that "there is probably no city in America where women are treated worse than in Las Vegas" and that Goodman, who supports at least discussing the idea of bringing brothels to Las Vegas, sets a "tone of systematic, institutionalized degradation."

For his part, the mayor insists Herbert left out part of the interview -- the part where Goodman said he's not going to push the issue because he knows his constituents aren't interested.

"When he wrote that about me, I was hot. I'm still hot," Goodman said. "And I'm not through with him."

In fact, Goodman said he would "take a baseball bat and break his head" if Herbert ever came to Las Vegas.

A city spokesman later went out of his way to say the mayor was only kidding. Besides, Goodman quipped at his regular Thursday news conference, "Baseball bats aren't used on people's heads."

ALAN CHOATE

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "Right before we pulled this car over for not having lights on, she ran into a trash can."

ONE COULD SAFELY SAY THAT ATTORNEY ROBERT LANGFORD IS NOT A FAN OF CORONER'S INQUESTS. Such hearings are held in Clark County anytime someone dies at the hands of a police officer.

During a break in an inquest on Friday, Langford remarked, "We should really start these things at 2 in the morning. That would be the appropriate time in Australia, since it is a kangaroo court."

CARRI GEER THEVENOT

CLARK COUNTY COMMISSIONER BRUCE WOODBURY became the longest-serving member of Nevada's most powerful board last week. All it took was 26 years, five months and 21 days on the Clark County Commission.

That's a lot of agendas under the bridge. To put it in perspective, in 1981, the year Woodbury took office, President Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Pac-Man-mania was sweeping the country. The Food and Drug Administration approved the artificial sweetener aspartame. And MTV was getting started and, shockingly, actually played music videos.

LAS VEGAS CITY HALL EMPLOYEES GOT QUITE THE SCARE Wednesday evening when someone called Las Vegas police alerting them that a man dressed in casual attire was carrying a rifle case.

Police scrambled. Employees huddled inside City Hall.

The manhunt quickly revealed that the man carrying the case was a police officer who had gone to the range to qualify with his rifle and was bringing it back to his office.

And how about this for a game of telephone? Hours after the incident was cleared up, a Review-Journal scribe was tipped that there had been a shooting at City Hall.

FRANCIS McCABE

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Bartenders take cocktails to new level

The Los Angeles Times toured the boozy side of Las Vegas last week and found it has gone far beyond its martini days.

"The cocktail is no longer a cocktail," Lark Ellen Gould wrote. "It's flaming tiki bowls of roiling red juice at the Peppermill or 30-ounce berry-infused vodka elixirs sucked from a jar at the Hard Rock pool. It's a $1,000 cocktail sipped with steak at BOA Steakhouse or 60-ounce "muddled" martinis, stirred and then shaken at Blush. Like most things in this over-the-top town, Vegas cocktails are a phenomenon that other cities would find tough to match."

After detailing numerous libations, Gould looked at the priciest: BOA's $1,000 cocktail "consists of 2 ounces of Hennessy Richard, three-quarters of an ounce of Dom Perignon Rosé 1996, half an ounce of Chambord Liqueur Royale de France blended with the juice of half a lime, one orange slice and a splash of cranberry juice."

But, hey, you don't have to give back the glass.

Gould traces the luxury cocktail movement to the opening of the Bellagio in 1998 and Steve Wynn's hiring of Tony Abou-Ganim "to elevate the art of bartending to the echelons of star culinary performance."