Columnist Jeff German: Free speech not a given on Fremont

Friday, Jan. 16, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

I've pointed out the hypocrisy of our city officials in the past when it comes to keeping the "free" in the Fremont Street Experience.

So forgive me for doing it one more time. I like to defend free speech whenever I get an opportunity.

Last week, you'll recall, Mayor Oscar Goodman proudly boasted that Las Vegas was going to be "the epicenter for free speech."

At his state of the city address, he announced that an international organization that helps foreign writers whose freedom is threatened find asylum in the United States is opening a regional office in Las Vegas.

It was a noble announcement for a good cause -- preserving freedom of speech around the world.

But I can't understand why the mayor and the rest of your City Council aren't as eager to protect freedom of speech closer to home on Fremont Street.

The hypocrisy of Goodman's words was undeniable this week as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the city's appeal of a lower court opinion declaring the Fremont Street Experience a public forum.

Anyone with half a brain knows that the $70 million pedestrian mall, financed mostly with public funds and created on a public street, is a public venue. Yet for the past six years the city has not only enacted a flawed ordinance banning handbillers touting commercial ventures, such as escort services, at the mall, but it has spent taxpayer money going all the way to the highest court in the land to defend the ordinance against a federal lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Local ACLU officials estimate the litigation has cost the city and Fremont Street Experience $86,000 in legal fees, and the tab, they say, is still piling up.

The sole reason for enacting the ordinance, which officially now can be declared unconstitutional, was to eliminate the nuisance of the handbillers on the pedestrian mall and create a cleaner business environment for the downtown casinos.

Our personal rights and liberties were supposed to take a back seat to the profits of the casinos, which have done little to reinvest in downtown without the public's money.

Though the ordinance was aimed at the pesky handbillers, it really was more far reaching. The law, for example, banned religious groups from looking for donations, anti-nuclear organizations from soliciting support in the fight against Yucca Mountain and even newspapers, like the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal, from selling their product without the permission of the Fremont Street Experience.

Goodman this week seemed to acknowledge that the epic legal battle has been lost. He said he hoped that the city could get together with the ACLU and work out a deal that protects both freedom of speech and the business environment on Fremont Street.

That's what the ACLU wanted to do six years ago before it was forced to file its lawsuit -- before the mayor proclaimed Las Vegas the "epicenter for free speech."