City probes sudden opening, moving of church

Erin Neff

Wednesday, July 19, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

In comedy, timing is everything.

But city of Las Vegas officials aren't laughing at a church's sudden revelation it is moving out of the strategic location that helped block a topless bar permit.

In fact an investigation is under way within City Hall to determine whether the church's location and ironic opening two days before a controversial council vote were helped along by any city staffers or elected officials.

One City Hall employee said the investigation has already revealed evidence of paper shredding to hide any documentation that someone helped the church and thereby helped scuttle efforts by two Houston brothers to open The Boardroom strip club.

Officials of the small church on South Highland Drive said the recent media attention drawn to it thanks to the involvement of two powerful political players forced it to move.

But who encouraged the church to move there in the first place?

The church's minister, Annette Marie Patterson, is the sister of Rick Rizzolo, who owns the Crazy Horse Too strip club. Patterson, whose church is not registered as a nonprofit, also works as a bookkeeper at the Crazy Horse Too.

The church quietly opened in April when nationally known Republican political consultant Sig Rogich was seeking council approval of a tavern license for his former office building. The church opened two days before the council vote, just 219 feet away from Rogich's old building.

Zoning code requires a 1,000-foot separation between adult businesses and churches.

The City Council -- apparently unaware of the church -- voted 4-2 to approve the tavern license after disputed measurements showed Rogich's building to be 17 inches beyond the minimum required distance to an elementary school.

But even as the elementary school and other tavern were discussed, sources say one council member asked the city attorney's office to look into zoning issues related to the church.

Was the church originally designed to stop Rogich from getting the tavern license? That's one of the issues investigators are examining. Rogich said he needed the tavern license to make the sale of his former office building more profitable.

Rogich, an adviser to Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign, is in the process of selling his old building to Ali and Hassan Davari of Houston.

The Davari brothers applied July 3 for a special-use permit to allow a topless club at the building. Their purchase of Rogich's building could be contingent on city approval of the use permit for an adult business.

City officials denied the use permit because of the church. But they now may grant a use permit if the Davaris re-apply after the church moves.