City shuts down Oasis Motel over prostitution

The Oasis Motel has been shut down indefinitely due to what Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Coffin called "unabated prostitution" and a host of other city ordinance and licensing violations.

The motel, at 1731 Las Vegas Blvd. South, between West Sahara and West Wyoming avenues, was shut down late last week by the city's licensing division and the Metropolitan Police Department, Coffin said Saturday.

"They're still allowed to keep people in the hotel that have already been there, but they are not allowed to take new people in," Coffin said.

The motel is in Ward 3, which he represents.

A desk clerk at the motel confirmed the motel was shut down, but he said that it was "being refurbished," and that it wouldn't open again until sometime in January or February.

Coffin said the city is going to start cracking down on "places of lodging" that have what he called "persistent problems."

"You don't just take a license away for an occasional thing," Coffin said. "But when you have persistent violations and you can't stop it while it's occurring on the premises, it's time to do something about it."

Coffin said another factor in the motel's closure is that it wasn't appropriately staffed at all times. Managers and clerks might have been working there, he said, but they certainly weren't anywhere to be found when the city licensing department crew paid them a visit or when police officers showed up on the doorstep.

"I know during certain times that our people or Metro would go by there, and they'd try to find a responsible party, and there'd be no one there," Coffin said. "That doesn't mean there wasn't a manager or an employee there, just that they weren't around when there needed to be somebody there."

Lt. Bill Cassell, a police spokesman, said prostitution exists in isolated areas of the entire Las Vegas Valley, and that the department's vice squad is constantly working on the problem, trying to clean up the streets.

"Our operations have been successful," Cassell said. "We have a variety of different departments that are working on this problem nonstop."

Contact reporter Tom Ragan at tragan@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.