Smoking Ban Avoidance
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:03 PM

Vice Squad has noted some of the dodges that have been tried in the past -- such as becoming a consulate. But today's Los Angeles Times provides an article (annoying registration possibly required) that is practically a how-to guide for restaurants and other establishments in Nevada to avoid the state smoking ban. The ban does not apply to places that do not serve food -- oh, and it doesn't apply to the gaming floors of casinos, brothels, or strip clubs, either. Nevadans have priorities, after all. So one thing you could do, if you are a restaurant, is to become a brothel, strip club, or casino. But the article recounts less obvious (to me, at least) circumventions. You can break your restaurant into a bar (smoking allowed) and a restaurant (no smoking), where bar patrons can order their food from the physically connected but legally and atmospherically separated restaurant. Other establishments make the division temporally, being restaurant by day, smoke-infested bar by night.

One disgruntled smoker notes that he doesn't like to leave an establishment to have a cigarette: 'It feels like you're a junkie if you go outside to smoke.' He doesn't draw Vice Squad's conclusion: shouldn't junkies be able to indulge indoors legally, too? [Maybe junkies don't want to?: it feels like you're a smoker if you go inside to shoot up.]

Speaking of debauchery, Vice Squad is back from New Orleans, and primed to go on and on about Regulating Vice. I am particularly pleased to report that Regulating Vice made it to number 7 on Amazon's best seller list. Oops, wait, that was actually number 363,704; that's just about 100,000 places behind Ferns For American Gardens. I'm aiming at you, fernsters.

Labels: Nevada, smoking ban

 
A Shift for Vegas: Legal Prostitution is Being Advertised
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:18 PM

Back in July, a federal judge struck down a Nevada state law that prevented the legal brothels (located in rural counties) from advertising in Nevada's two most populous counties, which contain Las Vegas and Reno and in which brothel prostitution is not permitted as a matter of state law. I think that the lawsuit was short-sighted on the part of brothel owners, and that voluminous or particularly provocative ads will increase pressure to end the state acceptance of legal prostitution in rural counties. But so far, it seems, the ads are discreet -- they are targeted away from the good people residing in Las Vegas, and aimed instead at tourists and those dodgy alternative types. The risque' ads come from the Vegas strip clubs, apparently.

Labels: dancing, Las Vegas, Nevada, prostitution

 
Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:33 AM

The (imminent?) release of a new book, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada, by controversial anti-prostitution scholar Melissa Farley, has occasioned lots of high-profile commentary. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert seems to wholeheartedly endorse the Farley approach, seeing coercion throughout the sex industry. An intemperate but effective rejoinder is provided by Mark Kernes of Adult Video News.com. Farley, who supports the Swedish approach of making the purchase but not the sale of sex illegal, can be viewed talking about her new book in a video (available here) from a Las Vegas tv news program. The Guardian provides an article that is quite informative, focusing on Farley's characterization of the legal brothels in Nevada.

I support some forms of legal prostitution, and I do not endorse the Swedish model. I believe that it is important to separate coercive from non-coercive prostitution in terms of appropriate public policy (as well as separating adult from underage prostitution), while recognizing that coercion resides along a continuum. Nevertheless, some of the issues raised by Farley do not simply disappear through legalization -- they require active policy responses. First, I think that she is right in pointing out that legalization of some forms of prostitution in itself is not effective at undermining illegal or informal prostitution. (This is unlike the situation with alcohol, for instance, in the US, where the legal market, despite specific taxation, comes close to wiping out the illegal market.) Second, the conditions under which legal prostitution takes place, such as the sort of extra-legal constraints on the movement of prostitutes that are applied as informal conditions of licensing, need to be addressed. Third, drug, alcohol, and financial counseling, as well as ongoing efforts to ensure that coercion is not being applied, should be part of a robust regulatory regime. Fourth, protections for the privacy of licensed prostitutes are required, in part to ease exit from the sex industry, and in part to provide incentives for choosing the formal market over the much more dangerous informal alternative.

I hope to return to this topic soon -- a promise or a threat?

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, robustness, Sweden

 
Towards Banning Brothels in Nevada?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:17 PM

A federal court decision has handed Nevada's legal brothels the right to advertise, even in those Nevada counties that do not permit legal prostitution. The court found the Nevada state laws banning brothel advertising to be overly broad, and hence inconsistent with the First amendment. But this is a case where more freedom today could well mean less tomorrow, if the marketing of brothels causes Nevada to join the other 49 states in banning them -- and their advertising. Somehow the judge failed to take the Vice Squad advice to follow the Posadas case.

Labels: marketing, Nevada, prostitution

 
Nevada's Legal Brothels: "Antiquated Joke"?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:35 PM

The editor of the Lahontan Valley News of Churchill County, Nevada, provides an editorial, "Legal Prostitution is an Antiquated Joke," arguing that Churchill County should get rid of its provisions that allow legal brothel prostitution. Vice Squad's approach to these issues tends to be quite different than those expressed in the editorial, but I appreciate the editorial because reasoned arguments for vice prohibition are not all that easy to come by, at least for those vices that currently tend to be illegal. (Editors of newspapers in states other than Nevada probably don't even think of writing editorials condemning legal prostitution.)

The editor admits to moral qualms about legal prostitution, but does not base his argument on those concerns. Rather, he argues that the costs of regulating and negotiating over legal brothels or potential brothels exceed the revenues that they bring into the county: "the business simply has never offered any redeeming value to the community, isn't doing so now and never will. It's not compatible with the direction the community is heading, and the county will continue to expend resources to investigate and analyze prospective brothel owners, most of whom are from outside the area, and often ending without the opening of a facility, until the ordinance is repealed."

This is a curious economics-style argument, since the main benefits of any commercial activity are those which accrue to the customers (in the form of "consumer surplus," as economists would say) and those which accrue to the sellers ("producer surplus"). A comparison of administrative and regulatory costs with licensing and other fees paid by legal business might be helpful in arguing for a change in fees (or in the costs), but an unfavorable comparison does not come close to establishing that a business has no "redeeming value." The accuracy of the related claim that "Brothels are not the business of the future" would be revealed soon enough if legal brothels can't make a go of it in Churchill County. Or should we adopt a rule that prohibits any business that the local politicians declare to be not of the future? (The editor might be right that the prospects of the brothel business are not that strong in Churchill County: indeed, despite the fact that provisions exist for legal brothels, currently there are no legal brothels operating in the county.)

The author is dismissive, perhaps a bit too hastily, of claims that prostitution should be reluctantly tolerated because men would be led to worse behaviors if prostitution were not available. "The 'safety valve' argument I've heard a few times around town, which claims that brothels provide an outlet for those who could potentially rape or commit sexual assault, is bunk." But increased sexual assault is not the only possible consequence. Divorce and the keeping of mistresses might increase, too. These combined reasons were sufficient to convince both Augustine and Aquinas that prostitution was a lesser evil.

There are a few interesting factoids in the article: "It's still baffling that 63.35 percent of local voters opposed repealing the county's brothel ordinance in 2004, while President Bush earned 71 percent of the vote in Churchill County." (Which figure is supposed to be baffling -- oh, it's the contrast, I see.) "An amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice signed by President Bush in October 2005 prohibits military personnel from patronizing brothels." I didn't realize that this provision applies to visits to legal and regulated prostitutes and brothels. (Here's the Defense Department's Press Release from the day that the amendment went into effect.) During the first Gulf War, Nevada's now-defunct Mustang Ranch offered a free "party" to any US soldier who served in the Gulf.

Vice Squad has looked at the brothel question in Churchill County before.

Labels: Nevada, prostitution

 
No Brothel Tax in Nevada
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:18 PM

Last weekend Vice Squad noted that some Nevada brothels were hoping to be taxed. One brothel-taxing bill in the Nevada Assembly and another in the Senate failed to make it to a full vote. Probably wouldn't have mattered, as the Governor does not seem inclined to sign such a measure. This anti-tax-rise sentiment in the good ol' USA is taking on some strange proportions.

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, taxes

 
The Business That Wants to be Taxed
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:20 PM

Legal brothels in Nevada pay substantial license fees to the counties in which they are located, and the prostitutes also pay $50 annually for a work permit. But the brothels do not pay any taxes to the state of Nevada. Some of them would like to, and a state legislator who is anti-legal-prostitution would like to help them. Politics and bedfellows, indeed.

The reason why some brothel owners would be happy to be taxed is because they recognize that the continued existence of their business is hostage to the good graces of state legislators. (Incidentally, replace 'state legislators' with 'mayor and local alderman,' and you have the situation that every business faces in Chicago.) From the linked Salt Lake Tribune article:

''We should have the same rights as any other business, but I also am a realist,'' said Bobbi Davis, owner of the Shady Lady Ranch, a brothel about 120 miles outside Las Vegas. ''And I think this tax thing is also a way to go. There's a price, sometimes, for legitimacy.''

Sounds reasonable to me -- brothels became legal in Nevada because of 'voluntary' fees paid to Storey County.

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, taxes

 
What's In a Name?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:52 PM

The Mustang Ranch brothel by any other name would....oh, whatever. Turns out that two brothel owners in Nevada think that there is quite a bit in the name Mustang. The original Mustang Ranch, Nevada's first legal brothel, was shut down by the feds a few years ago. Then one of its buildings was purchased (on e-bay) and moved next to another brothel owned by the purchaser. He intends to re-open the relocated (and soon to be renovated) building under the name "Mustang Ranch," of course. But in the meantime, another brothel owner re-named his brothel the Mustang Ranch. He sued, and now the fellow with the re-located Mustang has been told by a judge that he can't use the name Mustang. Whatever the merits of the decision, it is nice to ponder that thanks to the legality of the brothels, this dispute will be settled by courts, and not by guns. Can't say the same for street-corner drug market disputes.

On the subject of names and Shakespeare and prostitution, I saw Shakespeare's Measure For Measure at Chicago's Navy Pier on Thursday night. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater occasionally replaces some archaic Shakespeare language with what I suppose they think is a more understandable version. Right near the end of the play, when Lucio is forced by the duke to marry the prostitute with whom he had a child, he complains "Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,/Whipping, and hanging." Punk means prostitute, but Chicago Shakespeare changed it to "slut". And what they did to another Vice Squad-favorite Lucio line, the one about how lechery "is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down" -- well, they seemed to think that "extirp" doesn't measure up these days.

Incidentally, for vice policy buffs, Measure For Measure is pretty much the perfect play. Risking reductionism, let me just say that it presents the introduction of a zero tolerance policy, with all the usual trade-offs illuminated. That Shakespeare fellow, he's getting to be a pretty good playwright. (OK, I am reminded of another complaint I had about the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's version. In some "stage business" at the beginning, there's a mugging, accomplished with a knife and with the connivance of corrupt cops. The problem with such business is that (a) there's no mention of it in the play and (b) by presenting a crime with an actual victim (as opposed to the victimless vice crime of fornication), it pushes the viewer into supporting the ensuing crackdown. (Whether such a crackdown would likely lead to more or less violence is another matter.) There was also a gratuitous gunshot later in the Chicago version.)

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, Shakespeare, zero tolerance

 
Nevada Bucks the Morality Trend
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:51 PM

Churchill County, Nevada, has no operating legal brothels, though brothels could operate legally there. But some "reformers"* wanted to improve things, so voila', there it was on the ballot, a question to make brothels illegal in Churchill County. How did things turn out? "A ballot measure to ban prostitution in the county was trounced, two-to-one in one of scores of local issues and races decided in the general election."

Now we know that Winston Churchill favored alcohol, tobacco, and painting, but I am not sure about his take on other vices; still, I can't help but to think he would be pleased. (What do you mean the Nevada county isn't named after Winston Churchill! Don't be silly.) Vice Squad has noted the Churchill County controversy in the past.

*Incidentally, I have been reading Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's -- a wonderful book, originally published in the early 1930s. (I am reading it, of course, for its insights into Prohibition.) At some point Lewis notes how the word "reformer," which had a positive spin in the teens, by the 1920s had begun to be used contemptuously.

Oops, almost forgot to note my favorite bit of election news contained in the linked article: "Reno voters endorsed a small property tax to help control mosquitoes..."

Labels: Nevada, Prohibition, prostitution

 
Vicewire, 9/15/2004
- posted by Ryan @ 3:37 PM

1) The last part of Nevada's first legal brothel was air-lifted out of its original location, taking its new place in the Wild Horse Adult Spa and Resort. [Update, September 20: Here's a previous Vice Squad post on the relocation of the Mustang physical plant. -- JL]

2) Paypal, the company that handles much of the online payments for eBay, is fining customers who use its service to purchase items related to gambling, pornography, or illegal prescription drugs. Such payments are already prohibited, but now a $500 fine is included.

3) A new study shows that elderly people who gamble are healthier than those who don't. Yale epidemiologist Rani Desai said this: "There's this whole concept of healthy aging - that folks who continue to remain engaged in activity, especially in the community and in social activities, stay healthier longer, so I think this is a reflection of that. It's not that gambling makes you healthy, it's that gamblers are healthier".

4) Here's a great story about how 2 underage Norwegians took advantage of expired beer to make a boatload of money off a local store. In other beer news, a study has shown that beer may be helpful for fighting heart disease and cancer, though it was funded by Guinness and Labatt.

Labels: alcohol, gambling, Nevada, Norway, prostitution, Vicewire

 
Mustang Ranch Reconstructed
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:28 PM

Mustang was the first legal brothel in Nevada in the 1970s. It was seized and closed by the feds in proceedings that were connected to the continued (illegal) involvement of its founder, a Brazilian-dwelling fugitive from US tax justice. Then, amazingly, it was sold on e-bay. The Mustang Ranch has now been physically moved to the grounds of another brothel, the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa.

Alexa Albert wrote a fine book based on her experiences as a researcher at Mustang.

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, taxes

 
Is California the New Nevada?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:36 PM

In gambling terms, that is. According to this article (originally from the L.A. Times), some observers expect California's gambling revenue to grow markedly, possibly even exceeding Nevada's gambling take by the end of the decade. Right now, there are 60,000 slot machines in California, and 220,000 in Nevada, and Nevada also provides more gambling options: "Unlike Nevada, California does not allow sports books, craps or roulette, although tribes have devised card games that mimic the classic casino games."

The article also claims that the growth in gambling in California is in part a response to the adoption of property-tax limiting Proposition 13.

Labels: California, gambling, Nevada, slot machine

 
Proposed Nuclear Waste Dump and Gambling
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:38 PM

What do they have in common? Well, two things, actually: (1) Nevada has them, and (2) Ralph Nader is against them. Speaking in a Las Vegas library, Nader said, "No presidential candidate should visit Las Vegas without condemning organized gambling," according to this Associated Press story. John Edwards and Dick Cheney responded with sighs of relief.

Labels: gambling, Las Vegas, Nevada

 
Nevada Brothel Controversies Update
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:19 PM

While I was relaxing by the rivers Aare and Dnieper, Nye and Churchill Counties in Nevada witnessed some developments in their struggles with legal brothels and adult entertainment establishments. In Nye, recall that the main issue was provocative ads for a new stripclub, though the controversy was spilling over into a threat to legal prostitution. Well, now it seems that the owner of the strip club and Nye County officials have come to an understanding, and the more in-your-face billboard ads have disappeared. In Churchill County, legal brothel supporters have finally mustered up some resistance to the impending (for November) initiative vote to outlaw the houses of ill repute. They are challenging the initiative in court.

Labels: dancing, marketing, Nevada, prostitution

 
Killing the Strip Club With Kindness?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:59 PM

On Sunday, Vice Squad mentioned a burst of activity looking to get rid of the legal brothels in Nye County, Nevada. While some illegal (and controversial) advertising of the brothels has occurred in the past, many residents now are disturbed by new billboards advertising not a brothel, but an all-nude strip club, Kingdom Gentleman's Club. The owner of Kingdom also owns two of Nye County's seven legal brothels, and he does not appear to be all that interested in having his businesses keep a low profile. Here's an update from today's Las Vegas Review-Journal.

If you hurry, you might be able to join the prayer vigil scheduled for 7PM tonight -- in front of the Kingdom.

Labels: dancing, marketing, Nevada

 
Placating the Non-Customers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:56 PM

In George Ade's 1931 book on saloons, he attributed their forced closing to their unwillingness "to keep up a semblance of decency and placate the non-customers." Purveyors of legal vice today often similarly overreach. Nye County, Nevada, is the home of some legal brothels as well as the Kingdom, an "all-nude" bar. Joe Richards is the owner of the Kingdom and a couple of brothels. "Richards has erected billboards that advertise his brothels in what some say is a clear violation of the county's brothel ordinance, he has filed a lawsuit against the county, and he opened the Kingdom and decorated its outside walls with nearly naked women striking provocative poses." So it should come as no surprise that there are efforts underway to revisit Nye County's legalization of brothels, not unlike the efforts in Churchill County, Nevada, which have culminated in a referendum question on the November ballot.

In other Nevada brothel news, the Chicken Ranch is up for sale. It could be yours for $7 million.

Labels: marketing, Nevada, prostitution

 
How Are Vegas Slot Machines Regulated?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:56 PM

Today's New York Times has the latest contribution to its series of editorials ("Making Votes Count") on the process of collecting and counting votes. "Gambling on Voting" draws a comparison between how slot machines are regulated in Nevada, and how those newfangled electronic voting machines are regulated across the good ol' USA. The Times makes the important point that the voting machines are "cheap and untrustworthy" in comparison with the slots. But in doing so, to the delight of vice policy hounds, we learn quite a bit about the regulation of slot machines. I particularly enjoyed point 3:

There are meticulous, constantly updated standards for gambling machines. When we arrived at the Gaming Control Board lab, a man was firing a stun gun at a slot machine. The machine must work when subjected to a 20,000-volt shock, one of an array of rules intended to cover anything that can possibly go wrong. Nevada adopted new standards in May 2003, but to keep pace with fast-changing technology, it is adding new ones this month.

It's comforting to know that if lightning strikes the casino and all the people are temporarily put out of commission, the slots will still work correctly, no?

Labels: gambling, Nevada, slot machine

 
A Nevada County Reconsiders Legal Brothels
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:44 PM

Until recently, there was an operating legal brothel in Churchill County, Nevada, and earlier, there were two: county law permits up to two legal brothels outside the city limits of the town of Fallon. But some residents want to eliminate the possibility of legal brothels from Churchill County.

The Coalition to Keep Brothels Out of Churchill County planned to deliver petitions containing 1,200 signatures to the county clerk today to get an initiative on the ballot deciding the fate of legal prostitution in Churchill County.

County Clerk Gloria Venturacci has 20 days to determine if there are 743 valid signatures on the petition. The number of signatures represents 10 percent of registered voters who voted in the 2002 election.

The Nevada Brothel Association doesn't appear to be poised to contest the initiative.

Labels: Nevada, prostitution

 
Advertising Nevada's Brothels
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:43 PM

Brothel prostitution is legal in some rural counties in Nevada,
though the brothels are subject to a host of state and local
regulations. Among them is a ban on advertising, and Vice
Squad supports both the brothel legality and the ad ban.
The brothels, however, are hoping to have the ad ban
rescinded, and are even willing to support a tax increase
in exchange, according to this article in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. I think that this is short sighted of
the brothel owners, as I believe that free advertising will
threaten the continued legality of brothel prostitution in
Nevada.

The lobbyist for the brothels believes that the courts will
soon overturn the advertising ban in any case, and I tend to
agree with him. Nevertheless, even if the ad ban ends in
this fashion, I still believe that it will reduce public toleration
for legal prostitution.

Why are the courts likely to overturn the brothel ad ban?
Because Supreme Court decisions have been moving in
the direction of protecting advertising (as free speech) for
legal vices. Here's a brief excerpt from "Vice" Advertising
under the Supreme Court's Commercial Speech Doctrine:
The Shifting Central Hudson Analysis, by Michael
Hoefges & Milagros Rivera-Sanchez, Spring / Summer, 2000,
22 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 345*:
"...the Court has completely reversed its position on "vice"
advertising. Originally, "vice" advertising was effectively
excluded from First Amendment commercial speech
protection. The [Hoefges and Rivera-Sanchez] article argues
that after 1999, the Supreme Court has virtually eliminated
the "vice" advertising distinction and now requires equal
treatment under the First Amendment of all truthful,
non-deceptive advertising for lawful products and services."

As Vice Squad has argued before, full First Amendment
protection for commercial speech should not be assumed
to be a win for those with a libertarian bent.

Incidentally, the ad ban does not exactly pose much of a
barrier for those who are interested in learning more
about "Nevada brothels", as a web search on that phrase
will quickly confirm.

*Thanks to primo research assistant Ryan Monarch for unearthing
the Hoefges and Rivera-Sanchez article.

Labels: marketing, Nevada, prostitution, Supreme Court