Columnist Jeff German: Red flags go up on meter ads

Friday, Nov. 8, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

It's a trend that's growing around the country.

Local governments, unwilling to manage their affairs through normal revenue-generating methods such as taxes, are looking to private business to bail themselves out of their fiscal troubles.

A pioneer in this new financial frontier is the city of Las Vegas, which has been wheeling and dealing in the business world for months.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, you'll recall, wanted to sell the city's seal to an Internet casino based in Australia last year, but he couldn't persuade his colleagues on the council to go along with it.

Last month the mayor signed a deal to promote Bombay Sapphire Gin and bring $100,000 to city coffers.

And this week the Goodman-led City Council voted unanimously to sell advertising space on the city's 1,200 parking meters on the streets.

The decision was made without any debate and now, it turns out, with little thought and foresight.

Advertising executive Scott Allan went to the council with the idea out of the blue, and the council bought into it. Officials estimate the city can earn as much as $100,000 more a year with the parking meter contract.

Allan is an enterprising small businessman who's just out to make a few bucks for his wife and 11-month-old daughter. He's not looking for trouble.

But this agreement could end up becoming more trouble than it's worth.

The first ad hasn't even sprung up on a parking meter downtown, and already the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is making noise.

Allan wants to market the meters to the likes of lawyers, doctors and casinos. He says he's not interested in selling space to adult-oriented businesses, such as topless clubs and outcall services, which is fine, considering we see enough of them on billboards and taxicabs around town.

City officials certainly don't want Allan to sell advertising space to adult businesses, either.

The problem is Allan may have no choice but to give equal time to the sex trade.

Nevada ACLU Director Gary Peck insists the law is clear. You can't discriminate against any businesses, even those that might be offensive to some people, when you allow advertising on public property.

"If that space is opened up by the city for commercial advertising, then that space needs to be opened up for anyone engaged in lawful business," Peck says.

City leaders don't necessarily share that opinion.

But if Peck is right, officials may have opened the floodgate for widespread advertising downtown from businesses that sell sex -- exactly what Las Vegas doesn't need to attract upscale redevelopment projects to Fremont Street.

It raises the question: What were city leaders thinking?

Olympic Garden owner Pete Eliadis likes the idea of pitching his topless club to people as they get out of their cars to drop a quarter in a parking meter.

He says he definitely would pay for that kind of up-close advertising.

So would Vince Bartello, the largest outcall service operator in Southern Nevada, and he's ready to go to court to get an opportunity.

"We're going to challenge the city on that," he says. "We have just as much right to advertise there as anyone."

That's bad news for the wheeling and dealing city officials, who are about to find themselves in a real bind.

If Bartello is successful at challenging the contract, officials will have two options.

They can allow the parking meters to litter downtown with ads for strip clubs and outcall services. Or they can break their contract with Allan, who has dealt with them in good faith, and not allow any advertising at all.

Either way they create a bad business environment for the city.

It's the price of letting dollar signs cloud their thinking.