Council agenda includes ‘only in Vegas’ items

The Las Vegas City Council's crowded agenda this week includes a couple of "only in Vegas" items: a rogue wedding chapel that's made plenty of enemies and a strip club's request for funds to install a new neon sign.

The Las Vegas Garden of Love Wedding Chapel is appealing the city's decision to yank its business licenses after years of complaints and citations.

Olympic Garden Topless Cabaret, meanwhile, has applied for a redevelopment grant that would allocate as much as $50,000 of city money for upgrades to the club's exterior.

The latest chapter in the wedding chapel's saga started in late September, when chapel owners Craig and Cheryl Luell got a hand-delivered letter listing the many reasons why their licenses would not be renewed.

Starting in 2000, the Luells were flagged repeatedly by the city for doing business without the needed licenses, permits and work cards.

What's made the business notorious, however, are the allegations that the Luells and their employees have harassed, intimidated and assaulted their competitors.

"Since you received your initial business license in November 2002, there have been over 30 complaints filed with Metro and/or the city's business service division," the city's letter states.

"These charges ... determine your business operations to be a public nuisance."

The Luells are scheduled to appeal that decision to the council at Wednesday's meeting. A Garden of Love employee said Friday that the Luells weren't accepting media calls.

At the meeting, there will be "a line of people" ready to tell city officials not to back off, said Joni Moss, a local wedding consultant who also is a vice president with the Nevada Wedding Association.

"Nobody relishes somebody's demise," she said. Still, she added, other chapel owners "are pleased that the city has finally recognized what we've been addressing."

The council is also expected to address Olympic Garden's request for money to help pay for new signage on the Las Vegas Boulevard club.

The cost for the new signs is $131,700, of which up to $50,000 could come from the city's redevelopment agency.

The agency doles out funds to improve businesses in downtown Las Vegas.

Olympic Garden's request has raised eyebrows because it's an adult business and because the city must agree that "there are no reasonable means of financing" the improvements, perhaps a hard sell in an industry that's supposed to be drowning in cash.

"The council may vote it down," Mayor Oscar Goodman said during a recent news conference. But he dismissed any complaints about the city granting funds to a topless bar.

"If they're in the redevelopment area, it applies to them as well," he said. "I don't draw a distinction between them and the Griffin downtown, or the Downtowner.

"If there was a neon sign outside the OG, I think that would improve the area."

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or (702) 229-6435.