Group to file complaint against Fremont Street Experience

Denise Cardinal

Tuesday, May 26, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.

Members of an advocacy group wanting to get medicinal marijuana on the November ballot in Nevada were expected to file a formal complaint today with the Metro Police Internal Affairs Bureau.

The group, named Progressive Campaigns, was attempting to get signatures on a petition for a ballot initiative on Friday night at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas. Members were asked to leave the pedestrian mall by security guards, according to Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union Nevada chapter.

"They were told they were breaking the law because they were soliciting," Peck said. The ACLU has recently filed a lawsuit against the Fremont Street Experience, alleging that it is a public forum where free speech is allowed. A preliminary injunction filed by a federal judge last month maintains that the street is not a traditional public forum -- but that some manners of free speech are allowed.

After leaving the area, Peck said, the members were detained by Metro Police officers for an hour. The officers told the members that police could detain anyone for one hour -- with or without probable cause, Peck said.

"That is outrageous and wrong," Peck said. "That might be the powers that exist in a gulag state, but not in the United States of America in 1998."

Regardless of the pending case, Peck said, the petitioners were not in any way soliciting, as they were asking for signatures, not money.

"There is nothing in the laws that prohibits people from engaging in the democratic process," Peck said, adding that the next day, when the ACLU and Progressive Campaigns returned to the Experience, the police and security "hovered" nearby -- but never approached.

Peck and the Progressive Campaign members will be filing their complaint against the two officers who detained them to the Internal Affairs Bureau.