Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Council delays strip club review

The Las Vegas City Council unanimously gave the $30 million strip club Treasures another three months to prove it can operate without allowing the prostitution and other lawbreaking that detectives and city officials agreed are endemic to sex businesses.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, whose son is a lawyer for the club, and Councilman Michael Mack, who has consulting business with Treasures, abstained from Wednesday's vote, which was the result of a six-month tavern license review agreed upon by the business owners after a complicated battle to open.

The license was granted in 2001, and the club opened in September.

The license was approved "with high expectations," said Detective John Loretto, who was involved in the initial investigation of Ali "Dave" Davari and Hassan "George" Davari, the brothers who own Treasures. They also own similar clubs in the Houston area, where detectives found drug and prostitution violations at their businesses.

When the license was approved in 2001, the Las Vegas City Council said it wanted to raise the bar on acceptable behavior at sex businesses, hoping the $30 million off-Strip investment would be an incentive to crack down on managers and dancers who crossed the line.

Specifically, the owners promised that if any illegal activity took place at their club, they would not contest any city action against their license.

"Despite the efforts ... this business continues to operate outside code," Loretto told the council Wednesday. He ran down a list of violations, which included four arrests for prostitution and multiple violations of rules regarding touching between dancers and patrons.

However, the arrests for prostitution have not yet resulted in convictions, Councilman Gary Reese said.

"Exactly," said Mark Fiorentino, the lawyer representing Treasures Wednesday, who said his comments during the 2001 hearing applied not to a citation, but to a conviction.

In the city's minutes of the 2001 hearing, Fiorentino repeatedly committed to accepting revocation of the license if there was one citation. Later in the meeting, as the council was preparing its motion, Goodman and Reese began using "conviction" in place of "citation," and the motion that passed said "conviction" not "citation," according to the transcript.

Fiorentino declined to comment after the meeting.

During the meeting, Fiorentino outlined some of the ways in which the club owners are trying to crack down on illegal activity.

For example, he said, Treasures has hired a private investigator, who will begin background checks on dancers. While such a person always has been part of the owners' plans, he said, "it took a while to find someone who was above reproach."

He said the club has a policy that suspends dancers who are cited for illegal activity, and bars them from working there if they have been convicted or cited more than once.

Detectives also said that managers at the club had been uncooperative. While they didn't mention the incident, Fiorentino said that was a reference to an investigation following an October motorcycle accident involving former NBA player Dennis Rodman.

Two managers were suspended, and one ultimately was fired, Fiorentino said. He also said that after the incident, he gave his private numbers to police and told them to call him any time they had a problem with the club.

He also said in one of the citations for prostitution, the dancer told the man she was with that they needed to be careful, because the hosts "will not put up with this (illegal activity)."

"That's an indication they're doing what they can," Fiorentino said.

In a prepared statement, club owner Ali "Dave" Davari said: "At Treasures, we have created an upscale nightclub in an elegant, tasteful environment. We are committed to making the community proud of our business, and we look forward to proving that commitment over the next three months."

The review is to be heard at the June 16 council meeting.

Council members questioned whether the violations at Treasures were out of line with what detectives find at other clubs.

"It seems to me it's inherent. Certain things will happen at these clubs," Councilman Larry Brown said.

He said the report on the Houston clubs generated for the 2001 hearing "was so graphic and lewd that it opened my eyes as (to) how this industry can be."

Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald said in addition to information about other clubs, she'd like to know what happens at hotels.

"If we're going to start shutting people down (for allowing prostitution), we may have to shut down more than we think," she said.

After the meeting, Detective Stacy Rodd said that hotels were different because they don't employ people who turn tricks. While club owners often say that dancers are hard to control because they're employed as independent contractors, "owners are responsible for their behavior," Rodd said.

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