Columnist Jeff German: Idea won’t do the trick downtown

Friday, Oct. 24, 2003 | 10:58 a.m.

I know city officials have been trying to attract new businesses downtown.

But when did legalizing prostitution become part of the redevelopment plan? When was that vote taken?

Mayor Oscar Goodman the other day suggested on a radio talk show that we should engage in a "healthy" discussion of legalizing prostitution and the economic benefits it could bring Las Vegas.

After Goodman got a healthy dose of opposition from the radio station's listeners, he told the Sun's Sito Negron that he wasn't going to press the issue. But then he entertained the idea again at his weekly news conference on Thursday, even saying prostitution wouldn't be difficult to regulate here.

The mayor either has too much time on his hands or has trouble staying focused on the plan to bring downtown out of the doldrums.

Just when you think he's making legitimate progress stirring up interest in redevelopment -- with the opening of the Ice House lounge on Main Street and the nearby Las Vegas Premium Outlet Mall -- he gets sidetracked.

It turns out that Goodman isn't the only one talking up this issue.

This week a publicist for the Chicken Ranch brothel in nearby Nye County sent me a letter suggesting that legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas would stem the valley's rising illegal prostitution problem, which was reported in this space a month ago.

One of the brothel's owners, I've learned, recently met privately with a city official to discuss this subject.

The publicist contended in his letter that sex is safer in a licensed house of prostitution because the girls are screened by public health officials.

That probably is true. But any vice officer, and for that matter Sheriff Bill Young, who once ran the vice squad, will tell you that legalizing brothels on Fremont Street won't eliminate illegal prostitution.

It won't stop tourists from dialing up outcall services and requesting "entertainers" be sent directly to their hotel rooms. It won't stop high rollers from asking casino hosts to provide them with call girls. It won't stop local residents from going to sexually enticing massage parlors.

And it won't stop prostitutes who have sexually transmitted diseases from working the streets.

"There is no upside to legalizing prostitution in Clark County," District Attorney David Roger says.

All it will do is further cement the image we are creating for ourselves, for better or for worse, as a city where people can live out their vices.

My guess is if we allow brothels downtown we're also going to discourage residents and other businesses from moving there, which isn't part of the redevelopment plan.

If only Goodman could focus more on getting the casinos on Fremont Street to reinvest a bigger chunk of their profits so they could compete better with the megaresorts of the Strip.

If only he could create a buzz about the importance of attracting legitimate businesses to downtown and creating a neighborhood environment that will encourage people to raise families there.

I wish the mayor would lead us in discussions about bringing more parks, more restaurants and more shopping malls downtown instead of more prostitutes.

Now that would be healthy.