It started out fairly small, but still surprising: Two entire floors of one of the towers at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino were shut down by the county when it was alleged that the proper permits were never filed to cover remodeling work done between 2004 and 2006.

Due to safety concerns, the rooms were emptied so inspectors could check the work to make sure it was all up to code.

The next week, Harrah's Entertainment, which owns The Rio, voluntarily shut down almost 600 rooms at Harrah's on the Las Vegas Strip over similar concerns.

One of my readers was staying at Harrah's when the sudden evacuation happened.

Here is his story as he relayed it to me via e-mail:

"On the night of Monday Oct. 8th, I returned to my room at Harrah's after visiting downtown (and watching the Bills-Cowboys game) at about 11:30 pm. There were two messages on my phone. One was from a Harrah's host that I have never met telling me that I had to switch rooms immediately. The message asked me to call back the host's extension, so that he could arrange limo transport to either the Imperial Palace or the Flamingo. The second message was a recording from Harrah's president to apologize for the short notice and the situation. I immediately called my host and asked what the hell was going on. He said I had to move rooms, but he could find me another room in Harrahs (an upgrade!). My host came up to my room to drop off the new keys and explain. My host said that in the last set of room renovations at Harrah's, the final renovations were never approved by Clark County, and now everyone had to move out of the rooms in question until they could be inspected and approved. My host said that out of the 2,400 rooms at Harrah's, 600 of them were being closed, and many people were being moved to other hotels. So, at about 12:05 a.m., I started packing to move to my new room one floor up."

A week later, after my reader returned home, he received a letter apologizing for the inconvenience and offering him two free room nights to make up for it.

To their credit, the letter contained a forthright explanation about the event:

"For your information, the relocation of guests came about because Harrah's may not have obtained various permits required by the county related to remodeling of some of our guest rooms. We told Clark County we would vacate these guest rooms to provide it with a chance to inspect these rooms."

As of this writing those rooms remained closed at Harrah's, as do the two floors of rooms at The Rio.

In addition another entire wing of The Rio was closed temporarily while workers made some quick repairs to work that had been done during the remodeling that could've resulted in a dangerous situation in the event of a fire.

At this point the issue seems to be confined to those two hotels but with the constant construction and nonstop remodeling projects that are happening at hotels up and down The Strip, there is a concern that there could be more problems elsewhere.

County officials are reportedly taking a long, hard look at every hammer swing to make sure that none of the fancy redecoration has caused unsafe conditions at the hotels.

Other News From Vegas4Visitors.com:

• Stations Casinos To Go Private
• Q&A: More Renovation At Golden Nugget?

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