Brothel battle brews in Pahrump

Molly Ball

Friday, July 2, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Southern Nevada residents aren't the only ones following the debate on the proposal to eliminate brothels in Nye County.

The effort born in Pahrump to outlaw the world's oldest profession is being closely watched by members of a small but active movement that seeks to make prostitution legal in more places.

"I'm saddened by what's happening" in Nye, said Robyn Few, a San Francisco prostitute who is executive director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project there.

Few's group has proposed initiatives in California to decriminalize selling sex. To her, banning prostitution in one of Nevada's rural counties -- the only places in America where it is legal -- is a step backward for women everywhere.

"Let's don't take away what we've got," she said. "That's all we've got. Women are in danger in our country, and Nevada has afforded them one single safe place to go and work."

To those who support getting rid of the brothels, attention from the likes of Few is exactly what they want to avoid. Nevada's brothels, they say, have given places like Nye County a reputation they don't deserve or want.

"It's sad to me that this is what we're known for -- not the wide open spaces, the clean air, the friendly people, the affordable housing," said Henry Neth, chair of the Nye County Commission.

Neth has proposed that the five commissioners discuss banning the county's brothels by a majority vote and hold a public hearing on the subject in August. That motion is on the agenda of the board's meeting on Tuesday in Tonopah. The meeting will be linked to Pahrump by video-conferencing.

Also on the agenda is a competing plan to put the issue to voters, proposed by Commissioner Candice Trummell. Neth said he does not think he has enough votes for his proposal because Trummell, who also opposes the brothels, is championing her plan instead.

Commissioner Patricia Cox, who represents parts of Pahrump, said she would prefer putting the question on the ballot but would like to hold a public hearing, as per Neth's proposal, as well.

Trummell and the other two commissioners, Roberta Carver and Joni Eastley, didn't return calls seeking comment.

George Flint, a Reno-based lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association, spent the last several days in Pahrump talking to county officials and said he believes the brothels will not be outlawed.

"I can't say they won't put it up to the voters," he said. "The longtime residents who really have a better handle on this, they know legalized prostitution is the right way to go. The problem is the the 20,000 new residents. It would be like you or me moving to Paris, France, and being expected to tell them what's best for them."

Town is changing

At stake in the dispute over brothels is the image of Nye County, which is no longer completely rural -- a Wal-Mart Supercenter recently came to Pahrump, which is about 65 miles west of Las Vegas.

"My feeling is, the demographics are changing rapidly," Neth said. "We've gone from a small, sleepy retirement community to a place that encourages people to bring their families."

Cox said she supported the brothels as a legal business when she came into office, but recently she's gotten hundreds of outraged calls from constituents.

"It's not worth the embarrassment we're getting from this," Cox said. "I personally think that they (the brothels) are totally stepping out of line."

The question is whether the town has really changed enough to turn the tide against the brothels. In 1980, a ballot question asked, "Are you in favor of legalized prostitution within Nye County?" Sixty-six percent of voters said yes, according to state archivist Guy Rocha.

Rocha said rural Nevada's brothels are a relic of the mining and railroad towns of the state's past. The men who came here to work created a demand, and women traveled west seeking their own fortunes by satisfying that demand, Rocha said.

State law allows prostitution at licensed brothels in any county except Clark. Carson City as well as Washoe, Douglas and Lincoln counties prohibit brothel prostitution by county ordinance. Counties where brothel prostituion is legal have zoning requirements in their ordinances that restrict where and how brothels can operate in those jurisdictions.

Nye County, which legalized brothels in the 1970s, has grown in recent years, especially the town of Pahrump.

In 1986, Nye County had 14,680 people; last year, the population was more than double that, 36,651, according to estimates by the state demographer. Pahrump's population was estimated at nearly 29,000.

Those against the brothels claim the influx is on their side.

"I think there's a fairly good number of people in the county who feel the way I do," said Chris Nagel, who led a failed drive in 2000 to gather signatures for a petition to put the issue on the ballot.

Ill health and fear of drawing attention to his family kept Nagel, who moved to Pahrump in 1998, from pursuing the issue further, he said.

Seniority and salons

Many say the issue pits old-timers against newcomers.

"The residents that's been there for a while can coexist. They see what good the brothels have done," said Mack Moore, owner of the Angel's Ladies Brothel in the 1,000-population town of Beatty. "But the new people, they think sex is a sin."

Most Pahrump residents who were interviewed at Wal-Mart this week said the brothels didn't bother them.

"It's not keeping people from moving to Pahrump, is it?" said Cathy Dupre, 54, who moved to Pahrump with her husband Charlie, 63, a year ago.

Dupre said she goes to the salon in the Sheri's Ranch brothel resort to get her nails done, and she and her husband go to the brothel's sports bar to play pool.

"It's really nice there. You don't have to deal with the girls at all," she said. "I don't know of any other places in town with pool tables."

As for the morality of selling sex, she said, "What people like to do is their business."

That was the attitude of eight of 10 residents interviewed. But Dick and Georgie Bauer, who moved to the town four years ago, said they objected to the brothels.

"I would support the initiative to outlaw the brothels," Dick Bauer, 61, said. His opposition was partly religious and "also from the perspective of the degradation of women as an object rather than a person."

Whether prostitution exploits or empowers women is the subject of a debate that divides feminists.

Licensed for safety

In Nevada's brothels, the prostitutes are independent contractors. Last year the state Health Division estimated Nevada's prostitutes collectively performed 1,000 sex acts a day. They are individually licensed and undergo weekly health exams and screening for disease.

Moore said about 75 prostitutes work legally in Nye County, eight in his establishment. His license allows five of them to work the floor at a time and costs $8,000 a year, or $1,600 per worker. The prostitutes' licenses cost another $250 each per year.

Brothel employment keeps prostitutes out of the hands of often violent pimps and abusive customers, and curtails the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, Moore said.

Those who oppose legal prostitution generally bring up moral and religious objections.

Flaunting sex

Although their community is becoming an epicenter of this policy debate, Nye County residents are understandably more concerned about what the brothels mean for them.

Most, including Nagel, the anti-brothel activist, and Neth, the commission chairman, are at their most indignant when talking about the racy billboards one brothel owner, Joe Richards, displays.

Richards, who owns the Cherry Patch Ranch and Mabel's Brothel about 20 minutes outside Pahrump, recently opened an all-nude strip club at the very gateway to Pahrump, the intersection of State Route 160 and Homestead Road. Signs around the club, designed to look like a castle, and elsewhere in town advertise its wares as well as a brothel museum and bathhouse that are attached to Richards' brothels.

"While we're really not in favor of the brothels as an industry, the current emphasis by Mr. Richards on flaunting sex as you come into Pahrump is the real problem," Dick Bauer said of his and his wife's views. "This is a really nice community, but that's your first impression as you drive in," he said.

David Day, 63, favors the brothels but agreed with the Bauers about the signs. "Those pictures are too much for the children," he said. "They shouldn't be exposed to it."

While state and county laws prohibit advertising houses of prostitution, Richards has won lawsuits about his signs because they do not directly mention his brothels.

Richards did not return several phone messages seeking comment.

Money talks

Neth insists that his proposed ban is not a personal vendetta against Richards but rather a sensible fiscal measure. He claims that the county spends more money regulating the brothels than it reaps in fees -- about $134,000 a year, or half of 1 percent of the county's $26 million general fund budget.

Flint, the lobbyist for the brothels, countered that "whether it's the figure he is mentioning or the $182,000 figure that the sheriff or the mayor or whoever is throwing around, that's the incorrect and shortsighted way to look at the economic impact.

"They're talking about just the business licenses and work card fees. What about the $2.5 million in annual payroll for the 125 families supported by this industry in Pahrump, the $250,000 in sales and liquor taxes, and the $50,000 a year brothel owners spend at the grocery stores and other stores around town. The owner of the Chicken Ranch alone spends $300 a day at the grocery store. In the last three years, brothels have spent $4 million on the construction trade in Pahrump."

Sheri's Ranch, for example, has built a new hotel and spa facility that is to have a grand opening on July 24.

"Economists will tell you that each dollar spent in a community turns over an average of seven times, so the real economic impact of the $5 million to $6 million in direct dollars added by the brothel industry to Pahrump's economy is seven times that," Flint said.

And, Flint said, there would be increased costs associated with illegal prostitution because it would force prostitution onto the streets. That would tie up police and increase costs for the sheriff's department, he said.

Neth says there are holes in Flint's arguments, however. Property taxes would be paid on the properties, for example, whether or not they were brothels, Neth maintains.

And Neth complained that the brothels' customers are not a local problem but come from Las Vegas and cause trouble in his peaceful community.

Las Vegas officials said shutting down the legal prostitution next door would not likely affect their city, which has a thriving illegal sex industry.

"From where I stand as sheriff and with my experience running the vice squad, I don't think eliminating the brothels there is going to create any more prostitution in Las Vegas," Clark County Sheriff Bill Young said. "There's plenty of illegal prostitution here."

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