Escort industry generates uneasy mix on Vegas scene

Friday, Oct. 16, 1998 | 3:05 a.m.

Las Vegas has a love-hate relationship with its outcall industry.

It loves the sexy image of an attractive hostess with a well-heeled executive enjoying the city's recreational pursuits.

It enjoys the camaraderie of a bridegroom enjoying a last performance by an exotic dancer at a bachelor party before settling down to married life.

It's debauchery, Vegas style, and it's one of those guilty pleasures visitors say they'll experience only in Las Vegas.

But then, there are things Las Vegans hate about the outcall companies.

It hates the alleged prostitution that occurs when an entertainer is hired to perform. "You can't tell me that those women just dance when they go into those hotel rooms," a longtime Las Vegas marketing professional said.

It hates the litter that regularly piles up on Las Vegas Boulevard as unsuspecting tourists recoil from literature thrust into their hands by persistent peddlers.

It hates the costly constitutional battles that rage in courtrooms as lawmakers propose ordinances to control the industry only to be trumped by attorneys armed with the First Amendment.

And it hates the industry's newest marketing tactic, a presence on the World Wide Web. The industry says it's an economic godsend; critics call it online pornography.

Love it or hate it, outcall is a lucrative business that grosses a sum the FBI believes is big enough for criminals to kill for.

But Richard Sorrano, the most prominent outcall operator in Las Vegas, thinks it isn't the revenue generated by escorts, dancers and strippers that caught the mob's eye -- it's the potential for far more profitable criminal activity.

Sorrano can't understand why anyone with criminal intentions would want into outcall because it's closely scrutinized. He said he and his colleagues are harassed by police.

Why organized crime would attempt to get into money laundering, credit-card fraud and other illegal activities often associated with outcall is baffling to him.

Ironically, while police keep a close watch on the activities of the entertainers, the industry itself is virtually unregulated.

It takes only $150 a year, the fee for a general business license, for an outcall service to set up shop in Clark County.

Outcall workers are considered entertainers, which is why their craft doesn't come under privileged or regulated categories of business licenses. They don't require background checks by Metro, said Ardel Jorgensen, director of Clark County's business licensing.

Business owners can have their licenses revoked if they violate county health and safety codes. Jorgensen said outcall businesses are not inspected regularly and not many businesses have been closed.

There are 165 outcall businesses licensed by the county, but about five operators own them all. The largest percentage of them are owned by SOC Inc., headed by Sorrano. He operates companies called Strippers Elite and Heartthrob Entertainment, with a similar business plan for all of them.

He hires a manager who contracts with men and women who dance, strip and serve as hostesses for clients for up to $400 an hour.

"It's actually very boring," Sorrano said. "I hire a dispatch officer who answers the phone when it rings ... it's very boring. I never see the girls. It's as boring as any other office job."

On an average night, Sorrano said his companies will entertain 30 clients. But when a major convention is in town, such as Comdex, that number could double.

If 30 dancers entertain 30 clients every night of the year at $200 a party, the company would generate more than $2 million in revenues. Experts who monitor the industry believe that the actual take is much higher.

But Sorrano notes that there are major expenses as well. The biggest bite: advertising. Sorrano said 80 percent of his expenses are paid to get the word out to potential customers.

Most outcall businesses advertise in Las Vegas telephone directories.

Walter Giersbach, a spokesman for New York-based R.H. Donnelley, which is in a partnership with Sprint to produce the "First Source" Las Vegas Yellow Pages, said his company accepts advertisements only from businesses that are licensed, legally operating and current in their payments.

A full-page ad in the Las Vegas phone book cost $3,433 in the most recent edition, which contains more than 100 pages of outcall ads in the Entertainers category of the book alone.

In January, Donnelley instituted a policy of banning photographs of the entertainers from ads. While the voluntary action pleased some of the industry's critics, it sped Sorrano's move to the World Wide Web.

The company launched www.vegasgirls.com in April. Sorrano believes it's not only a more economic advertising vehicle for his services, but it may have been the catalyst for putting out-of-town mobsters on his tail.

He acknowledged feeling threatened in the aftermath of the incident but still feels the Internet is the key to his company's future.

"The Internet was a godsend to us," Sorrano said. "In the future, it's going to be our salvation."

Sorrano said in print and broadcast advertising, he can't show performers or say the word "nude." But anything goes on the web site. Photographs on the web leave nothing to the imagination, and the site promises a video striptease in the future.

Another advertising expense is the distribution of fliers on the Strip. But the most costly aspect of that venture is defending it in court. Sorrano said he spent $125,000 in legal fees defending his right to pass out literature. In 1997, he won a limited order restricting Clark County from enforcing a handbill ban and, in August, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that the code was unconstitutional.

Sorrano said some of the big resorts were on the bandwagon to oppose his efforts. But generally, Sorrano said, he has good rapport with most properties.

"Many of the (outcall) transactions occur without us knowing about it," said Jim Seagrave, a spokesman for the Stardust. "If we get a complaint from a guest, we will ask (an entertainer) to leave the property."

The bigger problem, Seagrave said, are the leaflets.

"There's a tremendous amount of literature," Seagrave said. "We confiscate any of it that is deposited on our property. As fast as we can spot it, we get rid of it."

While the resorts encourage their employees to be helpful and informative to customers, most don't officially sanction the outcall entertainers, whose advertisements promise they can be "in your room in less than an hour."

Concierge of Las Vegas, a company that promotes a variety of activities in and around Las Vegas from a marketing booth at the Stage Door Casino, won't recommend any of the local outcall companies.

Mike Manning, manager of the company, said instead of skirting around the issues of what entertainers will or won't do in the rooms of customers, he'd rather refer clients to legal brothels in Nye County. That way, he said, there are no misunderstandings.

"We have a good reputation and we want to keep it that way," said Manning, who said he refers customers to brothels about three times a week.

Al Bola, president of the Las Vegas Taxidrivers Association, said most cab drivers recommend that customers look at the ads in the Yellow Pages if they want a dancer.

"They're reluctant to say much if they're asked about prostitution, since it's illegal in this county," Bola said. "They'll offer to drive (customers) to Nye County, but with the amount of regulation from undercover police or the TA (Taxicab Authority), they're careful about what they say."

Bola said he isn't happy with the abundance of ads with sexual themes on cabs, a sentiment shared by a local marketing executive.

"That's one place where we're rightfully criticized," said a longtime Las Vegas resident who asked not to be named. "And when the National Gambling Impact Study Commission comes to Las Vegas next month, that's one of the things they're going to hit us on -- the abundance of explicit ads on billboards and in the telephone book."

Sun reporter Adrienne Packer contributed to this story.

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