Las Vegas Centennial: Columnist Susan Snyder: Organizer: .com con deplorable

Thursday, May 12, 2005 | 9:13 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Send Stacy Allsbrook chocolates, but make sure they are not from Belgium.

Rather than eating them, she might place them somewhere uncomfortable.

Belgium -- or more accurately, one Belgian in particular -- has been the bane of the Las Vegas Centennial executive director's existence for nearly three years.

The fellow, whose name is being withheld because he has not been charged with doing anything illegal, purchased all the Web site names ending in ".com" that could possibly have anything to do with Las Vegas' 100th birthday.

Allsbrook's name for him is being withheld for other reasons.

"He took 'LasVegas100.com,' 'LasVegasCentennial.com.' He took all of the '.coms.' He took all of them," Allsbrook said. "He left me with the '.orgs'."

(Insert unflattering description of said Internet thief here.)

"We sent him multiple cease-and-desist letters, but he ignores them," she added. "He just cuts and copies stuff from my Web site onto his. But since he's in Belgium, we'd have to go through international law and everything, and it just wasn't worth the time and expense."

Besides, the guy wasn't the only eel in the sea of people trying to make a buck -- ethically or not -- on the Las Vegas Centennial celebration.

Allsbrook has a "huckster file" of people and their schemes to use the Centennial logos, claim false Centennial endorsements and otherwise make a profit by riding on the city's birthday coattails.

"Oh my gosh. It's gotten bigger," Allsbrook said last week as she took out the file. "I have people who are trying to make more money for their own events by tying it to the Centennial."

She declined to name names or events. But she did reveal that people have tried to hawk everything from T-shirts to conferences that bear the Centennial theme but have no real connection to the celebration.

"We've shut a lot of these people down," Allsbrook said. "There are people who were fundraising for the Centennial and kept the money. Some of this stuff was sent directly to me at my home, and I'm like, 'You ding-dongs.' "

Plans for the real 100th anniversary celebration started in earnest in 2001, and it didn't take long for those looking to capitalize on the sly to spring into action.

One woman kept filing for trademarks on the proposed Centennial logos before the city could get them done. Some legal action and a written agreement eventually put an end to it, Allsbrook said.

"We have one musical group here who cut and pasted the logo off my Web site and put it on their CD case," she said. "I walked into a Stratosphere gift shop the other day, and they had Centennial license plates with red lettering.

" We haven't found a way to license that. But I looked on the back, and it's made in China," Allsbrook said. "Now I'll have to cease-and-desist those people."

Although the actual celebration date is Sunday, events throughout the year can carry the Centennial moniker if they fit the criteria to educate, commemorate or celebrate Las Vegas' history or culture.

Full guidelines and forms for acquiring the endorsement are on the Web site, www.LasVegas2005.org. Click on, "How to get involved."

Allsbrook says the committee wants as many residents involved as possible and will consider even the most obscure historical and cultural connections.

"But if you're trying to pull one over and give a false sense of what you're doing, I'm going to be on you," she added.

Most of the schemers have been pretty easy to put out of business. But the guy from Belgium persists, because unless the city wants to launch a long, complicated and potentially expensive international legal battle, they can't make him stop.

And that chaps Allsbrook's, um, chaps.

"He came to a committee meeting saying he'd like to 'help' us. I told him you're cyber-squatting on our Web site, and we were not paying anybody who had designs on the Centennial and no interest in Las Vegas," she said.

"We only get one chance to turn 100," Allsbrook said. "So it's really important to do it right and stay focused on the community."