Casinos discuss ways to combat violence

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, May 3, 2002 | 11:08 a.m.

Metro Police Deputy Chief Bill Young said today that he urged Laughlin casino executives to ban outlaw motorcycle gangs from their hotels at next year's Laughlin River Run motorcycle rally.

Young said banning the gangs could prevent the kind of violence that left three dead after bikers from the Hells Angels and the Mongols brawled last week at Harrah's Laughlin. "There are communities around the country that don't tolerate the outlaw biker element," Young said. "And if the Laughlin River Run is going to continue, the casinos as an industry need to make a decision not to extend hospitality to the outlaw biker element. Period. End of story."

Less than a week after the deadliest casino shooting in state history, Young attended a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday of executives from Laughlin's nine major hotels and promoters of the annual rally.

Casino executives, however, made no decisions, in part because banning outlaw motorcycle gang members from hotels would inevitably raise constitutional issues, as Young acknowledged.

Still, Young said, "As private businesses, they can refuse service to anyone if they can articulate a reason."

Andre Carrier, president of the Laughlin Tourism Committee and informal spokesman for the nine casinos, said Laughlin officials will research security strategies of other host towns of motorcycle rallies, such as Sturgis, S.D., and Daytona Beach, Fla. Carrier also serves as chairman of the Laughlin River Run and is a vice president of the Laughlin Golden Nugget.

"There were a myriad of possibilities discussed. We have 12 months to determine the best course of action," Carrier said. "But the one thing I would say is that everything that can be done will be done to ensure public safety at next year's event."

Because the Laughlin River Run is the town's largest money-maker -- last week attracting 70,000 biking enthusiasts over four days -- meeting the economic needs of casinos and small businesses will be of primary concern, said Duff Taylor, president of the Laughlin Chamber of Commerce. Taylor is also an executive at the River Palms hotel-casino.

"We want to support the small businesses and the resorts, and we will support the event promoters," Taylor said. But he echoed Young's remarks, saying, "We have the right as individual private enterprises to exclude anyone if we believe they are a threat to public safety."

Allen Lichtenstein, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in Las Vegas, expressed some concern at the possibility that front desk clerks could turn away people suspected to be gang members.

"Speaking in generalities, if the casinos are saying, 'We don't like the way you look. We think you're dangerous. We're not going to rent you a room,' that gets close to racial profiling," Lichtenstein said.

With the recent escalation of motorcycle gang violence and the threat it has posed to innocent bystanders, Keith Redmann, owner of the Hideout bar in Laughlin, said that rather than wait until next year's rally, police ought to track down the gangs now.

"It's a bad element. They contract hits, traffic in drugs and pornography," Redmann said. "They're the Osama bin Ladens of this society, and we should hunt them down."