Treasures’ suit challenges loss of license

Sito Negron

Monday, Oct. 11, 2004 | 9:26 a.m.

The lawyer for the strip club Treasures, flanked at a news conference by dancers, bartenders and bouncers, said the city improperly revoked the strip club's liquor license during a Sept. 15 hearing and he plans to go to court to get it back.

That claim -- that the license was revoked as opposed to being denied -- forms the core of a legal challenge filed late Friday.

Speaking at the news conference, lawyer John Weston used the term "permanent license" several times. City Attorney Brad Jerbic emphasized during the Sept. 15 hearing that the club was operating on a temporary license that expired that day, and the issue was whether or not to grant a permanent license.

The lawsuit attacks that contention directly.

"Although the city, had it elected to do so, could have noticed a hearing for a revocation of plaintiff's liquor license, having already long since granted to the application and issued the license, the city had no jurisdiction in September 2004 to deny it, because there was no longer a license application pending before the council," states the lawsuit.

Weston said Friday that there was no indication in city meeting transcripts and other records that City Council intended the license to be temporary until a "mention in passing" in March, then a "vigorous discussion" in June.

In that June 15 discussion, the lawsuit states, the city attorney advised the council to treat Treasures "as if they have been acting under a temporary license."

Weston said the actual license, given in September 2003 after being approved in 2001, never showed the word "temporary" and was not stamped with an expiration date.

"Somehow, over the next 12 months, staff convinced the City Council it was not a permanent license," he said.

Las Vegas Sun reports from the initial liquor license hearing in 2001 do not refer to the license being temporary. It refers to the transfer of an existing liquor license from property owner Sig Rogich to the Davari brothers.

The lawsuit also points out that the adult entertainment business license initially was termed a conditional license. When planning and fire department requirements were met the word "conditional" was removed and the permanent adult entertainment business license granted.

The city attorney said he had not seen the complaint and so would not comment on the issue, just one of many raised in the Treasures lawsuit, which asks that a judge allow the club to reopen with a liquor license as soon as possible, pending a decision on the case.

During the Sept. 15 City Council hearing, Jerbic argued that among the reasons to deny a liquor license to the Davari brothers were:

The club received its license after a drawn-out application process that ended with Fiorentino's promise and a vote in February 2001. It opened in September 2003.

The license application was contentious because of a Metro Police background check that found that the Davari brothers, club owners from Houston, had a history of prostitution, drug use and other lawbreaking in their Texas businesses.

In August one Treasures dancer was convicted of soliciting prostitution. Another dancer was in court on Wednesday on prostitution charges. Her hearing was pushed back until November.

In addition to asking for the liquor license, the lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages. Treasures closed Sept. 15, except for a brief trial run as a "juice bar" that did not serve liquor.

"There is always collateral damage that doesn't get talked about," Weston said. In addition to the dancers, who are hired as independent contractors and who now must seek work elsewhere, the club employed 75 to 120 people, he said. Treasures put $7.5 million into the local economy and paid $800,000 in taxes to local and state government in its one year of operation, Weston said.

And, he said, "the action deprived residents of Las Vegas and the millions of visitors the opportunity for the unique entertainment experience at Treasures."