Strip news racks lawsuit nixed

Grace Leong

Friday, May 10, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

A sex company has no constitutional right to place news racks for its advertisements on the privately owned sidewalks in front of casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Richard Sorrano, an outcall dancing service operator and chief executive of Las Vegas publisher Southwest Advertising, sued Clark County one year ago in hopes of obtaining permits for the news racks.

He argued a March U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing demonstrations by pedestrians on the private sidewalks supports his claims that Clark County's refusal to issue him news rack permits "constitutes a restraint of speech and press in violation of rights guaranteed to (him) and others by the First and 14th Amendments."

In the pedestrian case involving union demonstrations at The Venetian resort, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that private sidewalks in front of Las Vegas resorts are public forums protected under the First Amendment. The lower court ruling was upheld when the Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal.

Clark County contends that the sidewalks on the Las Vegas Strip are private property and that while the government may regulate the public pedestrian use of the sidewalks, the government can't regulate the placement of news racks on the property. In particular, the county said it couldn't force a private business to allow placement of another company's news rack on its property.

"If the plaintiffs have a 'property right' to place news racks on those private sidewalks, they can go out and put as many as they want out there," Clark County said in court papers filed Nov. 30. "If the owners of the private sidewalk are keeping the plaintiffs from placing the news racks out there, then the plaintiffs should sue those property owners to enforce whatever rights they claim."

U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt dismissed Sorrano's arguments, saying the "issue here is one of property rights" and "does not involve restrictions on what pedestrians do while walking on public sidewalks."

"Rather, this case involves a demand that the county issue a permit and force, against the will of the property owner, structures, in the form of news racks, to be placed on the owner's property. And then, to add insult to injury, plaintiffs' obvious purpose is to advertise and promote its own commercial ends which is, or may be, contrary to ends of the property owner," Hunt said.

The judge said the issue is one of property rights, a state question, as opposed to the federal First Amendment question.

"Property rights aren't created by the Constitution, but are the result of state law," Hunt wrote in Thursday's ruling.

"This is not a federal question. Recourse lies exclusively in these circumstances and on this set of facts, with state law and the state courts."

An attorney for Sorrano declined comment on the ruling.