EDITORIAL: Heed guidelines to keep New Year’s Eve party zones safe

The threat of terrorism has not significantly changed the visitor experience in Las Vegas, not since 9/11 and not since this year's unnerving attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

That's largely because Nevada's elected officials, public safety officers and gaming and tourism leaders take the threat of terrorism so seriously. As a result, they're asking valley residents and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who'll celebrate New Year's Eve tonight in Las Vegas to submit to voluntary security protocols intended to reduce the risk of a potential attack.

"The environment that we're living in now has changed," Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Monday in reference to the Nov. 13 attack on Paris that killed 130 and the Dec. 2 San Bernardino shootings that killed 14 people.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the country feared another large-scale terrorist attack, and Las Vegas came up time and again as a potential target. Just before the city's 2003 New Year's Eve celebration, multiple Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles were canceled, with some federal intelligence officials telling national media that hijackers intended to crash at least one of the jetliners into the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada officials denied those claims, saying they had been told by federal authorities that Los Angeles, not Las Vegas, was the intended target. The valley's New Year's Eve party went on as planned, but with helicopter gunships patrolling the airspace above the Strip.

Today, radicalized followers of the Islamic State are the threat, and the Paris and San Bernardino attacks highlighted how easily armed terrorists can inflict mass casualties in public spaces.

Sheriff Lombardo emphasized that the city faces no credible threats against New Year's festivities, but the Metropolitan Police Department won't take any chances tonight. There will be 1,000 uniformed officers on the Strip, 300 uniformed officers downtown and other officers dressed in plain clothes. And they will be asking everyone who enters the Strip and the Fremont Street Experience to leave behind large bags and strollers.

They'll be asking, not ordering people to do so, because the Clark County Commission could not lawfully pass an ordinance prohibiting large bags and strollers on the Strip in time for tonight's celebrations. The Paris and San Bernardino strikes were too recent, and the commission is required to provide the public with proper notice on such votes.

Hotels will alert guests to the security request, and notices will appear at McCarran International Airport and on highway message boards. The plan is in place not to instill fear, but to create an environment that removes risk and creates a better party atmosphere for all.

It's a small ask. Please do your part to make the jobs of Las Vegas police officers easier tonight. If you're headed to the Strip or downtown, leave behind your large bags and strollers. Have a safe and Happy New Year.