Is Las Vegas talking?

David Kihara

Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005 | 8:01 a.m.

As the saying goes, one man's corrupt value system is another man's national advertising campaign.

Take the phrase, "stop Snitchin'," which is emblazoned along with the words "I'll never tell," on T-shirts that have become popular with urban youth across the United States. Police and public officials are speaking out against the shirts. They say that the message encourages gangsters and others to refuse to cooperate with authorities investigating and prosecuting crimes.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino implored his community to stop wearing or selling the T-shirts. Prosecutors in Pennsylvania withdrew charges against three defendants after the man they allegedly tried to kill took the witness stand wearing one of the shirts and refused to take it off.

But what of Las Vegas, the playground that markets itself as the capital of kept secrets, the city whose mayor, Oscar Goodman, once famously told a New Yorker writer that it is "better to murder than to be a rat."

Las Vegas law enforcement officials said this week the shirts hadn't caught on locally, especially not with the Las Vegas Valley's estimated 5,900 gang members. Clark County School District Police Chief Hector Garcia said the shirts also hadn't become popular with students.

Some shirt vendors would disagree. They say that thousands have been sold at outlet stores.

"People really like these shirts," said James Lee, 13, whose family sells the shirts at Lee's Socks and Underwear inside the Q-Mall Swap Meet on Tropicana Avenue. Lee, a student at Duane Keller Middle School, said the shirt's appeal was as obvious as its message: "Don't snitch. Don't be telling on people."

Growing up in a city whose marketing campaign celebrates the promise that what happens here, stays here, Lee could be forgiven if he somehow confused the two messages, right?

Absolutely not, says Erika Yowell, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The shirts and the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" slogan were meant for different audiences.

Stop Snitchin', she said, is more of a childhood taunt used on the playground. The visitors authority, meanwhile, is marketing the city as the "adult destination."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Go to a bachelor party and snitch on the groom to be? Of course not. Snitching is not a Las Vegas experience."

David Kihara can be reached at 259-2330 or at davidk@lasvegassun.com.