Friday, May 21, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Authorities singling out strip club, attorneys say

Ali Davari, left, and Hassan Davari, right, leave Las Vegas City Hall on March 17 after the City Council delayed a decision on a permanent liquor license for their strip club, Treasures. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Treasures was allowed to open on a provisional liquor license. Photo by Samantha Clemens.

The future of the palatial, $30 million topless club Treasures hangs on the outcome of a handful of misdemeanor cases wending their way through Las Vegas Municipal Court.

Four charges of soliciting prostitution and more than a dozen dance-code citations wouldn't, under normal circumstances, merit much more attention than a stack of traffic tickets.

But with the club's liquor license at stake, the attorneys defending Treasures dancers claim police and the city have singled them out for harsh treatment. The club's owners, Ali and Hassan Davari, vowed to surrender their conditional liquor license without a fight if the club's dancers were convicted of sexual misconduct.

"They're on a campaign to try ... to harm Treasures and the prospect of their being permanently licensed," attorney Louis Palazzo said. "I don't know what's in it for them. It's hard to get behind their motive to do this."

Palazzo said the city attorney has refused to offer plea deals to reduce the charges, a common practice. And police, he said, appear to be scrutinizing Treasures more intensely than other clubs.

In addition, Palazzo and attorney Ross Goodman, who also is representing several of the club's dancers, said city officials have tried to speed up their prosecution to bolster the city's case for revoking the liquor license.

Palazzo and Goodman, the son of Mayor Oscar Goodman, have themselves raised a few eyebrows by delaying any decision on the solicitation citations issued in September and October. There were a total of 11 pretrial appearances before trial dates were set for this summer.

"We are opposing any continuation of these cases," said City Attorney Brad Jerbic. "But we are not seeking to accelerate any prosecution."

All but one of the cases has been pushed past the City Council's June 16 deadline to grant or deny Treasures a permanent liquor license.

That may cause the council, which granted a three-month extension in March, to again postpone a decision on the license.

"Defendants have a right to a speedy trial, not the city," Goodman said of questions about the timing of the trials.

The prospect of more delay angered Councilman Gary Reese. When Treasures' license was first scheduled for review in March, the councilman proposed the council await the trials before voting.

"I gave them what I thought was a proper amount of time to get this settled one way or another," he said. "If they are convicted we've got a problem. But I want to see a resolution one way or another."

Mayor Oscar Goodman and Councilman Michael Mack have abstained from voting on the matter. Mack is a public relations consultant for Treasures, and the mayor has been mum because of his son's role as counsel for club dancers.

Las Vegas police Capt. Gary Schofield, who oversees the department's special investigations section, said continued scrutiny of Treasures has been in response to complaints and requests by city officials.

"No one place gets singled out," he said.

But Las Vegas officials don't deny they're being tough on Treasures. They said the club has asked for it.

"If we are treating Treasures any differently it's because they agreed to a zero-tolerance policy before the City Council," Jerbic said.

The City Council granted Treasures a temporary liquor license in 2001 only after the club's representatives promised to maintain a higher standard than other erotic dancing establishments.

The promise addressed the council's concern that out-of-state clubs owned by the Davaris were plagued by multiple citations for prostitution, lewdness and drug use. The Davaris' attorney promised the club would "raise the bar" on compliance with the law.

That hasn't happened, according to a Las Vegas police background investigation into the club completed in March.

According to the document, obtained by the Review-Journal through a public records request, officers found in nine visits to the club an accelerating "culture of lawlessness" demonstrated by a rising number of violations and citations.

Management allowed in plain view improper touching between dancers and customers.

On a visit to the club in September, the month Treasures opened, "Detectives saw an entertainer giving a dance to a female customer where there was direct groin to groin grinding along with fondling and caressing of the entertainer by the customer as other customers and a floor person watched," the report states.

Club security acted as lookouts, warning dancers when police were on the premises, according to the report.

On repeat visits, which continued until mid-March, officers saw no improvement, according to the report.

"The failure to correct the activity as a responsible owner would do, and the notification network set up to thwart police efforts at enforcement rather than eliminating the behavior itself mean that management and ownership are either silently or vocally complicit in the activity," the report concludes. "That is a far cry from `Raising the bar' as was the pre-opening agreement."

With pressure on the club, management has promised to train dancers how to comply with codes and weed out those who repeatedly violate them. The owners also have cracked down on employees who fail to cooperate with police or break the law, according to Mark Fiorentino, the attorney who represents Treasures before the council.

"We're going to show that we're doing things in that club to prevent violations that no other club is doing," Fiorentino said recently.

Whatever corrections have been made haven't solved all the problems as police see them. City officials said Thursday that visits to the club since the March council meeting have produced more citations.