As it turns out, Las Vegas wasn’t the hoot that Hooters thought it would be. Alas, there’s too much T&A skin and cleavage on view at any given time in almost any Vegas casino for Hooters to show perky profits. Results have pointed downward and flopped to a loss of $16 million in the nine first months of last year, according to Dow Jones Newswires and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Barely a year after Hooters hotel-casino opened off-Strip on East Tropicana Avenue, a casino advisory group plans to buy the property and its operating company for $95 million, the R-J said on Jan. 23.

“Analysts charge that although the Hooters Girls and their bright orange short-shorts lure plenty of patrons in Little Rock, Ark., and Albuquerque, N.M., Las Vegas has flesh appeal everywhere,” said D-J in the R-J.

Local observers added that renovation of the former San Remo Hotel at 155 East Tropicana Ave. was cursory at best, noting also that the San Remo earlier had been a destination for el cheapo bus tours originating from Los Angeles and Monterey Park.

Thus the Hooters attempt to bust into the Las Vegas hotel-casino market went bust because, as the saying in Spanish goes, it was like taking a sandwich to a banquet.