Sure....it's a business/convention hotel area.

However, there's a difference between relatively subtle, less-obvious activity of this sort, and overt activity obvious to everyone that goes beyond what has been the norm here in the past.

There's no mistaking, for instance, the heavy police presence I witnessed on the street last April. I took a lot of grief for pointing it out here and elsewhere, that somehow I was some naive travel newbie who didn't know what I was seeing.

I accept that there has been and always will be this sort of thing in large cities where businessmen meet. What I also understand is that sometimes things become aggravated beyond the norm, and I think that's what TrentEMN and I are both observing here.