Columnist Jeff German: Vegas going down the wrong road

Friday, May 6, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

So the scenery is changing along the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard.

The Las Vegas City Council voted Wednesday to take away the license of the Del Mar motel -- a seedy place of rest and relaxation just south of Charleston Boulevard that had become a hotbed of prostitution.

And the run-down motel, described by a deputy city attorney as a 24-hour "whorehouse," promptly closed its doors.

For $35 the Del Mar offered a two-hour room special with "free XXX movies." The deal included free condoms, but guests paid additional cash to the cheap hookers who police said also patronized the motel.

The folks at City Hall may have figured out that a whorehouse in the neighborhood wasn't helping them get the U.S. Transportation Department to declare a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard -- from Sahara Avenue north to Washington Avenue -- a national scenic byway.

This is the bold scheme the City Council voted to pursue a year ago with the hopes of prying away federal funding to enhance what officials called the "roadside charm" of the area.

Hey, if California's Big Sur Coast Highway can achieve lofty scenic byway status, why can't the poor tattered end of Las Vegas Boulevard?

I'm not sure, however, whether chasing away street walkers on the boulevard improves or harms the local scenery in the face of so many eyesores scattered along the route. That would include the deserted buildings, pawn shops, adult video stores, tattoo parlors, bail bond shops and payday loan outlets, to name a few.

The tacky thoroughfare isn't exactly in the class of the Las Vegas Strip, its upscale extension in the county, which runs from Sahara Avenue south to Russell Road. The five-mile Strip, lined with some of the world's most spectacular megaresorts, received its scenic byway designation with ease in 2000.

Other than the Olympic Garden topless club, the biggest scenic attraction in the city's section of Las Vegas Boulevard north of Sahara is the Stratosphere Hotel and Tower, the middle-end resort that has carnival rides on its roof.

Still, city officials say they're moving ahead with efforts to obtain the coveted national byways designation.

Margo Wheeler, the city's director of planning and development, says the city is waiting to hear from the Transportation Department about the status of its application, which was filed in November.

The discovery of one little whorehouse in the area, she says, shouldn't hurt the city's chances.

"We don't see that as an issue," she explains. "Our whole application is based on the urban nature of Las Vegas Boulevard -- the night-time neon, the wedding chapels and all of the surrounding (planned-but-not-yet-built condominium) projects."

But it's a long way from Big Sur, Margo.