Columnist Jeff German: Sweep just brushed aside drug problem

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

You saw the headlines and the television news footage late last week.

Metro Police and Las Vegas marshals, with reporters in tow, conducted a sweep of Fremont Street, ostensibly to bust a growing number of drug dealers plying their trade east of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Mayor Oscar Goodman billed the operation as yet another step in the city's invigorated downtown redevelopment campaign -- a campaign that hinges on healthy casino revenues.

When the Thursday morning sweep ended, 42 people had been arrested, but not many of them were drug dealers. Most of those taken into custody were transients charged with misdemeanors, such as jaywalking. The sweep wasn't exactly a major assault on crime.

Yet it accomplished its goal of ridding Fremont Street of drug dealers -- by driving them to nearby Meadows Village, another crime-infested area the city is trying to clean up.

The dealers were tipped off to the sweep a day earlier when it became common knowledge on the street. That turned Thursday's action into nothing more than a shell game in the war on drugs downtown. The problem simply was moved to a less-influential part of the city.

Even city officials now acknowledge that the crackdown was more fluff than anything else, designed to show the riffraff that the city is serious about wanting to create a better business environment for its ailing downtown casinos.

"We were trying to send a message to a broader spectrum of people that the police are going to have a higher profile there," Las Vegas Communications Director David Riggleman said.

That message was received. But by driving the bad guys off of Fremont Street, authorities caused more headaches for Meadows Village business owners who don't have the same clout as the downtown casinos.

"Drug dealers are all over the place here now." said Chris Christoff, a longtime community activist who owns the Montclair Apartments, 335 W. Cincinnati Ave. "They're just moving them from one area to the next."

Gabriela Norena, who manages the Monterey Villas, 2316 S. Tam Drive, said she received reports of people doing crack cocaine over the weekend in all four of her laundry rooms, something that never has happened before.

"Normally my property is not the cleanest on Monday, but today it was a disaster," she said.

Both Christoff and Norena said police for months have promised to clean up the drug trafficking in Meadows Village, but have yet to do it.

"Nothing is being done," Norena said. "I see Metro drive by them on the street and either ignore them or wave to them."

Metro Lt. Vince Cannito disputed that claim. He said officers haven't wavered a bit in their commitment to rid Meadows Village of drugs, and he urged residents and business leaders there to report any stepped-up narcotics activity to police.

As for life on Fremont Street, the riffraff temporarily may be gone, but it doesn't impress Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

"This is just another feeble attempt to prop up failing casinos that can't make it on their own," he said. "I don't care how many people they arrest for jaywalking. They're never going to convince people that the El Cortez is the Bellagio and Fremont Street is the Las Vegas Strip."

That they won't.

But city leaders certainly know how to play a good shell game when they're shilling for the casinos.