Legal fight over handbills is delayed

Jace Radke

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.

The ongoing battle over the distribution of fliers for adult entertainment and escort services along the Las Vegas Strip is scheduled to continue next month to allow attorneys the chance to review police reports of prostitution stings.

U.S. District Judge Lloyd George began hearing evidence last week on whether a Clark County ordinance banning the dissemination of fliers and handbills on the Strip for commercial purposes violates First Amendment free speech guarantees.

George agreed to continue the trial, which attorneys estimated would take a day, to March 25.

Dominic Gentile, the attorney representing S.O.C. Inc., one of the businesses challenging the county ordinance, estimated that the Metro Police reports total about 700 pages and would take some time to review.

Details about how Metro's prostitution stings work came out during the trial, which began last week, when two Metro officers testified that they had arrested several female dancers from S.O.C. Inc. and Hillsboro Entertainment, the other plaintiff in the case, on solicitation charges.

The officers also testified that solicitation stings are sometimes recorded on videotapes that are later taped over or erased, prompting officials at the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada to question whether the department is destroying evidence and violating 14th Amendment rights.

Metro officials say that very few of the sting operations are recorded, and those that are are not for evidentiary purposes, but to help train undercover detectives.