Friday, September 17, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NO LIQUOR, NO BUSINESS: Treasures closes doors

Observers weigh in on ripple effects of liquor license denial

A Southern Wine & Spirits truck backs into Treasures on Thursday. The Las Vegas City Council denied the strip club a liquor license. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

While Treasures' owners huddled with their attorneys and employees hauled booze from the premises Thursday, others pondered the broader significance of the Las Vegas City Council's surprising decision to deny the $30 million strip club a liquor license.

The meaning law enforcement took from the decision was clear to Councilman Gary Reese -- three messages from police officers were waiting for him when he showed up to work at his barber shop Thursday.

"They called and told me thanks for supporting their efforts," he said. "They feel like their work is being rewarded. They go in there to try to put things in place and maybe in the past things happened that shouldn't have."

The newly alcohol-free club opened about 6 p.m.

By 6:30 p.m. it did not appear that even a single patron had walked through the club's doors. The club closed its doors by 10:30 p.m. It was not clear late Thursday night whether the owners planned to reopen.

City officials received no communication from club representatives Thursday. "It's been absolute silence," said City Attorney Brad Jerbic.

There were, however, signs a legal challenge of the 5-0 City Council vote to deny the club a liquor license might be in the works. The club's owners, Ali and Hassan Davari, have hired John Weston, an attorney with a Southern California law firm specializing in adult entertainment law.

Beyond the immediate effects at the club, some industry observers and members of the council believe the Treasures decision has pushed strip club regulation and enforcement onto the council's agenda.

Councilman Larry Brown floated the idea of revisiting the city's regulations during Wednesday's hearing after noting how subjective enforcement of the city's erotic dance code can be. The code allows contact between dancer and customer as long as it's not sexual in nature.

"If we're serious about the industry we need to take a look at the code," he said.

Reese said that allegations leveled by Treasures' representatives on Wednesday that at least one club in the city is "way out of control" merits examination.

"If some of the innuendos that came up (Wednesday) are true they ought to be looked at," he said.

But Councilwoman Janet Moncrief had a different take.

"We're not putting other sexually oriented businesses on trial," she said. "I don't know that our industry is that big of a problem."

Others saw in the council's decision a club unfairly singled out for punishment.

"You can't tell me there aren't two sets of values here," said Andrea Hackett, organizer of the Las Vegas Dancers Alliance, a local association of about 900 erotic entertainers. "Treasures is an exemplary strip club. It's an anomaly because they have a terrific track record and a commitment to make sure they don't have prostitution going on there. It's the cleanest club in Las Vegas by far."

Statistics don't bear out Hackett's assertion that Treasures is the cleanest club. But they do show it is in the middle of the pack when it comes to dancers receiving citations for violating the erotic dance code or soliciting prostitution.

So far this year, Treasures dancers received 13 dance code citations during six visits by police.

Meanwhile, eight visits by police to Olympic Garden and Crazy Horse Too yielded 28 citations at each club. At Cheetahs, five police visits resulted in 22 citations.

After its dancers received four citations for soliciting prostitution in the first two months of operation last year, Treasures hasn't received another solicitation citation. There is, however, no record of vice officers visiting the club since then.

Both Cheetahs and Olympic Garden dancers received six citations for soliciting prostitution during 2003.

"Very little of the council's decision was predicated on what happened in the club," Weston said. "I really don't have a feeling the City Council had a true sense of what the club was all about."

Attorney Paul Larsen, who represents the owners of Jaguars strip club, which is located in Clark County, said city club owners shouldn't be alarmed by the council's vote. But it deserves monitoring.

"If I were a club owner in the city I would ... make sure I had a compliance program in place," he said. "But I wouldn't consider it a sign the city is going to go head hunting."

Others drew a far simpler significance from the council's vote: the repercussions of a broken promise.

Treasures' owners promised when they obtained a temporary liquor license in 2001 that if there was a single conviction for sexual misconduct at the club they would willingly surrender their liquor license. Last month a Treasures dancer was convicted of soliciting prostitution.

"It was Treasures attorney who threw down the gauntlet that prompted this action," said UNLV history professor Hal Rothman. "In that sense this has all the markings of an above-board decision. A promise was made and a promise was not kept. ... From my point of view when you make promises and don't keep them there are consequences and these were the consequences in this case."

Review-Journal writers Brian Haynes and Frank Curreri contributed to this report.