Las Vegas

Don't get near the smoke, that's all I believe that it's a waste of tax dollars to hire a person to visit each business to "leave a letter" of the new ordinance against smoking ("Slow start for smoking law," June 16). Why do we have a U.S. Postal Service? The city could just mail the letter of notice. It would save a lot of hard-earned dollars. I lived in Burbank most of my life before moving to Las Vegas, and people could smoke in a park, outside restaurant patios and street fronts set up for dining.

Firm names manager for Las Vegas office Workway, a Burbank based staffing firm, announced the addition of Deon Haynes as new branch manager of its Las Vegas office. Haynes will be responsible for developing relationships and providing customer service to the Las Vegas business community. The high level of growth in the Las Vegas area has created the need to expand Workway's staff, according to the announcement. Haynes has more than 10 years of experience in Las Vegas.

A short film shot from a script she wrote will be featured on the Showtime cable network in less than a month, and yet Suzanne Knode hesitates to call herself a filmmaker. But on her first try, Knode wrote a script that was made into an 11-minute film, which will be featured on Showtime's new series "This American Life" and is being shown at a film festival in Southern California. At 64, Knode had never written anything creative — not dialogue, scene settings or any of the things needed to make a screen play — but she did know something about being an older woman.

My shampoo contains provitamins. My window cleaner boasts that it has ammonia-D. The makers of my mint candies invested millions of dollars to make sure I know their product contains Retsyn. And a can of shaving cream in my house proudly proclaims that it contains allantoin. And we wonder why the language in general and kids' attention span for learning language in particular are going down the drain. As you may have guessed, all these wonderful product ingredients — most of them household names — have one thing in common: They all mean exactly nada to the average person.

Tightened security didn't keep a delegation of Las Vegas showgirls, circus performers and comedian Carrot Top from landing at the Million Air Terminal at the Bob Hope Airport on Thursday. "The biggest day of airport security this year and this is what gets to come through!" quipped the comedian, escorted by four sequined, bikini-clad dancers and two masked acrobats turning summersaults on the tarmac. The display of glitz ushered in a first-of-its-kind concierge station, where Las Vegas-bound travelers can make restaurant reservations, book show tickets and schedule other activities before they leave the airport, said Howard Lefkowitz, president of Vegas.

Mark R. Madler In baseball speak, the creative minds behind the film "Pitcher and the Pin Up" feel like they are in the minor leagues and are ready to step up to the majors. "We've got one run in," said David Burr, co-writer of the film, released Tuesday on DVD. "We want to get some more and win the game." Director, co-writer and male lead Drew Johnson, Burr and his wife, co-executive producer Denise Pouchet, are all Burbank residents who spent several years working on the film, which has undergone three name changes and drew attention at film festivals, including the 2003 CineVegas International Film Festival and the fifth annual Silver Lake Film Festival in September.

Ani Amirkhanian Dancer and choreographer Elizabeth "Jill" Sanzo, who took her foothills dance company to award-winning heights, died unexpectedly on Friday. She was 70. Sanzo, a resident of Burbank, was known for delighting audiences in her annual production of "The Nutcracker" ballet at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. A professional dancer, Sanzo was the owner and director of Ballet Petit, a dance studio in La Canada Flintridge, and was the artistic director of the Ballet of the Foothills.

JOYCE RUDOLPH SoundMoves Recording Studios will give unsigned artists a chance to be heard by top music industry professionals as the grand prize of its upcoming contest. The winner will get to track, mix and master one song at the Burbank recording studio (a $4,800 value) and receive 1,000 packaged CDs (a $850 value), and a documentary video of the session (a $2,000 value). This free contest is the idea of SoundMoves founder and engineer Michael Woodrum.

Mark R. Madler Even though he stood under the cool shade of a tree outside Burbank City Hall, Musa Akdere could still sum up in one adjective his third day visiting Southern California. "It's hot. It's very hot," said Akdere, 18, who is from Essen, Germany. "We are not used to degrees this high." Akdere is finding out everything's super-sized in America. Despite the heat, he's having a great time on his exchange student visit. "It's immense, everything is bigger than in Germany," Akdere said, adding that he is most looking forward to going to the beach.

Jackson Bell When a man walked into Cinema Secrets with the intent of purchasing a disguise, owner Maurice Stein sensed he might be up to something illegal. So Stein, the son of a police officer, followed his instincts and called the Burbank Police Department, telling them that the man in his makeup and costume store might have ill intentions. After a 48-hour investigation prompted by Stein's call, police arrested Brian Scott Bennett on Oct. 22 on suspicion of planning to kidnap his 6-year-old son and attempting to change his and the boy's identities.