Columnist Jeff German: A case of too much lawyering

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 | 11:35 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

What would we do without lawyers? Anytime they get involved in the political process you can bet things will get screwed up.

That wasn't a rerun of the disciplinary proceedings involving Jack Galardi and Cheetahs topless nightclub Wednesday at Las Vegas City Hall. But it sure looked like it.

The City Council agreed to impose a $1.017 million fine on Galardi's company, La Fuente Inc., for the sins of the strip club mogul's son and former company co-owner, Michael Galardi, who has pleaded guilty to bribing politicians in San Diego and Las Vegas.

This is the same fine, minus $78,000, that the city slapped on La Fuente back on Jan. 7.

So why did we go back to square one? Because of the lawyers.

On Jan. 7 Jack Galardi's attorney, Dominic Gentile, pleaded with the City Council to fine Galardi rather than revoke the liquor license at the lucrative Cheetahs, which would have forced the strip joint to close it doors.

Instead of ending the Galardi family's reign at Cheetahs, which has caused much embarrassment to politicians across the valley, the City Council, led by Mayor Oscar Goodman (another lawyer) caved in to Gentile and ordered the fine. Sure it was the largest fine in city history, but it was just a slap on the wrist for the elder Galardi, whose popular topless club earns as much as $8 million a year.

Gentile had succeeded in saving his client's valuable liquor license.

That should have been the end of this story. Galardi should have handed Goodman a check after the hearing and run for the door.

But Galardi let Gentile persuade him to challenge the validity of the fine in District Court with the hopes of delaying its inevitable payment. We are, after all, a litigious society.

The appeal, however, was viewed as a double-cross at City Hall and ended up wasting the resources of our overburdened court system and forcing the folks in the city attorney's office to work overtime -- at taxpayer expense, of course.

And it backfired on the normally clever Gentile.

Goodman, it turned out, demonstrated that he's still pretty good at the lawyering game himself.

Angry at what he called Gentile's "slap in the face," Goodman instructed the city attorney's office to draw up another complaint against La Fuente Inc. on new charges, this time reportedly with the intent of doing what the City Council should have done on Jan. 7 -- revoke La Fuente's liquor license.

Gentile got the message and threw up a white flag. He offered to drop the legal appeal if the city agreed to go back to the original deal that called for Galardi to pay the $1 million-plus fine.

That brought us "back to the future" this week, where once more we heard Gentile beg the City Council to fine his client rather than revoke his liquor license.

And once more, despite all of the tough talk, the City Council took the easy way out and imposed the fine, surely causing Gentile to breathe a sigh of relief after almost blowing the deal of the century for Galardi.

This week Gentile took no chances. He brought Galardi's checkbook with him to the City Council.

If he had done that on Jan. 7, he would have spared himself and his client some heartburn -- and he wouldn't have wasted everyone else's time for six weeks.