LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Longtime employees say it’s the friendships they’ve made at the Tropicana that will last long after the hotel is gone.
From human to feline, many have also built strong bonds with a group of cats who’ve been longtime residents at the Tropicana.
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“Everybody, from housekeeping to PBX to a lot of the bartenders, everybody on all different shifts will come in and feed them, and they know everybody. When you drive up, they know the sound of your car, and they’ll come running,” said former Tropicana bartender Kathy Love.
As soon as the Tropicana announced its closing date, Kathy Love and Pat Stubson, who were both bartenders at the hotel, took on the task of trapping the cats and moving them to a safe home before the building comes down.
“Once there’s going to be a fence around here, we don’t know if they’re going to be able to get out over the fence. I don’t know where they’re going to go from here, and they’re used to being fed,” said Love.
“I’ve fed them for at least 12 years, maybe 15,” said Stubson.
For the last two weeks, they’ve been setting up traps, and spending hours looking for the cats around the property after their late-night shifts.
The C5 organization lent them the traps, and they’ve caught eight cats so far.
“A few people here at the hotel have taken them to foster until they can get socialized until they can get adopted out,” said Love.
But they’re still looking for 7 to 12 more, including a kitten and an elderly cat named Grandpa.
“Grandpa’s the oldest one that’s got little bit of hairballs. We’re trying to catch him. He’s beautiful, and he’s the feisty one that is just eluding us right now,” said Love.
Love and Stubson say the Tropicana cats are just as much a part of the Tropicana family as anybody else.
Stubson even built a Catio in her yard to house some of the Tropicana cat family until they can be adopted out.
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