City sued over Fremont access

Denise Cardinal

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 10:05 a.m.

The city of Las Vegas is infringing on the First Amendment rights of visitors to the Fremont Street Experience, according to a lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The suit states that even though the Fremont Street Experience is public property, a city ordinance allows a private management company to prohibit free speech activities.

"Virtually everything is illegal under the city ordinance," said Mark Lopez, senior legal counsel for the ACLU's national office in New York. "The distribution of literature is illegal, the solicitations of charitable donations or any money is."

The lawsuit asks for the federal court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional.

The national office's support is necessary for the lawsuit, according to Lopez, because the Fremont Street Ltd. Liability Corp., one of the defendants listed in the case, is made up of downtown casinos with big pockets.

The city and downtown casinos cooperated in 1995 to turn Fremont Street into a pedestrian mall. Cars are no longer permitted on the street, four blocks of which is covered by a canopy used at night for extravagant light shows. Activities on Fremont are now tightly controlled by the casino consortium.

"We've been looking very carefully not only at the pedestrian mall ordinance, but at a number of other laws in Nevada that we see as unconstitutional," said Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU's Nevada chapter.

He said the organization is also pursuing a lawsuit against Clark County's handbill ordinance, which prohibits the distribution of literature on the Strip. "This isn't a matter of bad faith, but of bad judgement on the part of public officials."

Plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit are the ACLU of Nevada, ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Gary Peck, the Shundahai Network, Shundahai member Greg Gable, the Universalist Unitarian Social Justice Committee and its president, Paul Brown.

Defendants named in the lawsuit are the city of Las Vegas, Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, the Fremont Street Ltd. Liability Corp., and its president, Mark Paris.

City officials and Paris would not comment on the lawsuit.

Las Vegas lawyer Chuck Gardner, who participated in a picnic on Fremont Street that protested the city's alleged infringement of First Amendment rights, said he didn't think the courts would take long in deciding in favor of the ACLU.

"They're handing the control of a public street to a private company," he said. "I don't think the court's going to have a difficult time."