Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Theater of the absurd

Friday, July 21, 2000 | 9:10 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

IN SOME matters, it is very difficult to separate church and state. Or, should I say, city.

A cynical City Hall watcher would decry the laughable circumstances surrounding the move by political kingmaker Sig Rogich to have a once highly valued office building he owns re-zoned to allow for a topless bar. Since I am not a cynic, I could only marvel at the incredulousness with which one coincidence after another kept cropping up to throw more light on a matter most councilmen wanted to vote for in the darkness of public ignorance.

If I were a cynic, though, who believed that these things don't just happen, there would be a simple explanation for why the city's staff said "no" and the city's elected officials said "yes" to my friend Sig's request for a financial bailout. The Las Vegas of a few decades ago was rife with examples of how one hand would not only wash the other but would point an accusing finger at the same time. In those days, everything was, as one longtime watcher used to say, "as square as an orange." There was no question that a well-connected fellow would get his way. The excitement was how it would happen. But that isn't supposed to be the way government works in the year 2000.

Sig ultimately got what he wanted, but not without considerable personal grief and some temporary sullying of a hard-earned reputation. The matter had, seemingly and please excuse the pun, been put to bed. Frayed nerves had healed and bad feelings set aside. And that is when the curtain rolled up on Act 2.

It is said that God works in mysterious ways. That must be the case because it appears that something happened to Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo and/or his sister to make one of them open up a church just two days before the council was set to vote on Sig's zoning request. In Las Vegas, as in almost every jurisdiction, the law not only frowns upon a topless bar or other adult-type establishment from being located near a school or a church, it actually prohibits it.

You may recall the theater of the absurd that centered on the distance from Sig's building to a school, which city staffers had measured to be within the prohibited area. Obviously, by the time the hearing rolled around, a different -- or, at least, a more accurate -- measurement was taken and the offending school was determined to be outside the proscribed area by an appropriate matter of inches. Apparently what the council did not know or, at least, did not consider was that, a couple of days before the vote, a church was surreptitiously started well within the prohibited space. Just 219 feet away when 1,000 feet was required.

While I understand the school requirement, I have always thought that the best place for some churches is right next to the sinners who need them most. Sort of one-stop shopping, if you will. But that's a different column.

For whatever reason, and that will probably be a big part of this soap-opera story yet to come, the city of Las Vegas did not deal with the church issue until two guys from Houston, Ali and Hassan Davari, applied on July 3 for the required permit to operate a topless bar in Sig's old office building. That's when they were stopped in their tracks and turned down cold because the law is the law.

Now back to the church and its minister, Annette Marie Patterson. Pastor Patterson, excuse me if I have not addressed her properly, has a relationship with any topless bar's biggest competitor, Rick Rizzolo. Not that he would do anything underhanded to thwart a competitor, but it could be considered a coincidence that the good minister is also Rick's sister and an employee at the Crazy Horse Too. Do you think he knew his sister started that church so close to Sig's building? Do you think he knew his sister was a minister of God? Do you think anyone else knew what was going on?

A lot of people are asking questions about what people knew and when they knew it. This is the kind of theater that always has a final act and, probably, a final curtain. The latest scene, though, has the brothers Davari being sent away topless-barless and the preacher deciding to move her house of God to sunnier climes. Couldn't stand all the attention, she says.

In the end, this play will end like it began. The vote will stand and one more topless bar will grace the landscape of Las Vegas. The big difference, though, is that everyone will be pointing fingers away from themselves and directly at anyone stupid enough to get in the way. Crazy Horse may be an appropriate player in this comedy. If I remember correctly, he was involved in a massacre. When the voters finally learn what really happened and who pulled the strings, there may be another massacre of political proportions not seen in recent years.

How I yearn for the good old days.