Fliers link Republicans to support for strip clubs

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

Two Democratic candidates for the Clark County Commission are circulating fliers tying their Republican opponents to support for strip clubs.

Assemblyman Tom Collins, vying for the District B seat now held by Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, and Assemblyman David Goldwater, seeking the District F seat held by his opponent, Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, sent the fliers out during the past several days.

Collins' piece charges that his GOP opponent, North Las Vegas Councilwoman Shari Buck, supported "the only all-nude bar and strip club" in Southern Nevada and takes money from strip-club operators.

Goldwater's flier charges that she supported Ali and Hussan Davari's application to open the Treasures strip club last year. Treasures is now closed after the Las Vegas City Council moved Sept. 15 to deny the topless club a permanent liquor license. Goldwater also charged that Boggs McDonald took campaign contributions from the Davaris.

Both pieces were produced by Gary Gray, a political consultant who often works for Democratic campaigns in Southern Nevada. The Goldwater flyer was mailed on Sept. 30, and the Collins flyer went to voters Monday, Gray said.

While the two fliers came out nearly at the same time, Gray said there was no effort to tie the Republicans together.

"Those issues seemed to present themselves in both cases," he said. "People are extremely upset at what they perceive as sleaze in government."

The flyer criticizing Boggs McDonald said the then-Las Vegas councilwoman, who was appointed to the commission in March, ignored the advice of the city attorney and Metro police in approving the Davaris' license to operate Treasures.

"Lynette Boggs McDonald says she fought against adult businesses ... oh really?" the flyer asks. "When notorious strip club owners Ali and Hassan Davari came knocking, she took their money AND approved their club!"

The Buck piece ties her to an ongoing investigation of the county commission in which federal investigators allege that three former commissioners and one sitting commissioner, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, took money from a Las Vegas strip club operator in return for favorable votes.

"Our current county commissioner and three past county commissioners are under criminal indictment right now for conspiracy, wire fraud and extortion for bribes and favors from strip club operators," the Collins piece on Buck says. "We can't afford more embarrassment from a commissioner with bad judgment."

Boggs McDonald, Buck and their supporters fired back at the Democrats.

Dan Hart, a political consultant working with Buck, called the flyer: "One of the most disgusting, over-the-top, untrue mail pieces I've ever seen. I find it curious that a candidate that is so supprotive of the brothel industry, and is being supported by them, would raise this as an issue.

Buck said her 2001 vote was not to allow the all-nude Palomino Club, the only such club in Southern Nevada with full liquor service, to operate but to transfer ownership.

"I'm saddened and disappointed that he (Collins) would stoop that low," Buck said. "It's misleading because legally, according to the city attorney at the time, we had no legal basis to deny the transfer of the license."

The license for the club to operate expires in 2018, Buck said, "so at some point it will come to an end."

Boggs McDonald sharply questioned Goldwater's character in her response.

The Treasures temporary license "was a very complicated issue before us," Boggs McDonald said of the 2001 and 2002 votes that approved the club. She noted that the temporary license also had support from Mayor Oscar Goodman and Councilmen Michael Mack and Larry Brown.

"What was the defining issue was that the mayor's motion included a one-strike and you're out provision," Boggs McDonald said. "No other club in that industry has been held to that standard.

"While I approved a temporary license, Goldwater himself is a frequent visitor to gentlemen's clubs ... He is the sleaziest of all."

She said the Davaris contributed to her congressional race in 2002, not to the current county commission race.

"I am very proud of the votes that I have cast to keep adult businesses out of neighborhoods," Boggs McDonald said, citing the effort to expel a store selling adult materials from a West Charleston Boulevard neighborhood.

Goldwater said he has been in topless clubs, but is not a frequent visitor.

"I was born and raised in Las Vegas," he said. "I have been to the clubs to entertain clients, for friends' parties and celebrations and I don't try to hide anything... It's very infrequent and it's limited to those kinds of situations."