Escort service application raises questions for council

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, March 8, 2001 | 11:02 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council Wednesday voted to delay a decision on whether to allow an escort service to operate in the city.

Blue Limited has proposed to open an escort service near Rainbow and Oakey boulevards after the business was barred from an area in Summerlin because the neighborhood's restrictions.

Blue Limited's partners say they have signed a lease for the office space and need it only as a place to hang their business license. They say the office would include only a desk and phone and that no one would be dispatched from the property.

City officials are focusing on an ordinance that restricts escort services to commercial areas,in effect keeping them 1,500 feet from schools, churches and parks.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, however, questioned the separation requirement if, indeed, a proposed escort service is nothing more than an empty office with a phone. He asked Metro Police to define an "escort service" for the council and to determine whether it should be classified as sexually-oriented businesses.

"I'm of the impression that outcall services are another name for, perhaps, prostitution," Goodman said. "I want to find out from Metro what it is."

Since 1996, a Metro representative said, 765 prostitution arrests stemming from outcall services have been made.

The city is grappling with the escort service because it has not received an application of this type in 30 years. In fact, if Blue is licensed it would be the only escort service licensed as such in Clark County or Las Vegas.

Councilman Michael McDonald said he wanted to clear up "unfair" media reports that might have linked him to the application. One of Blue's partners, Cynthia Steinman, was an exotic dancer at Crazy Horse Too. McDonald and Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo are friends, but McDonald said he has had no relationship with Steinman.

Blue partner Jeffery Schoor told McDonald he relocated from Summerlin and asked an agent to find him an inexpensive commercial plot, which happened to be in the councilman's ward.

"We would like to change the face of this (escort service) business," Schoor said.