Columnist Jeff German: What happens next for LVCVA?

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005 | 9:04 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is moving today to get back something of value it knows it should not have given up.

It's taking the first step to regain the popular marketing slogan, "What happens here, stays here," from its longtime advertising agency, R&R Partners.

And it's ready to support a series of new policies aimed at making sure that bad deals such as this one don't happen again.

"We're attempting to provide real direction and substance that we really didn't have in place to guide the management team," says Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, who's on the 14-member board that oversees the LVCVA.

This has been an expensive lesson for the LVCVA, the publicly funded agency that promotes Las Vegas.

The San Francisco-based law firm of Morrison & Foerster so far has submitted a $200,000 tab for basically giving the LVCVA the kind of legal advice any first-year law student would have rendered -- that the slogan should have stayed in the LVCVA's possession.

This morning the board is scheduled to hear a request from LVCVA President Rossi Ralenkotter to amend a secret Nov. 9 agreement that turned over the slogan, along with its lucrative merchandising rights, to R&R Partners.

The amendment keeps "What happens here, stays here" in the hands of R&R Partners for the time being. But it also makes the LVCVA the exclusive licensee of the slogan, which officials say should guarantee that the slogan is used solely to market Las Vegas.

It's about as far as the LVCVA can go right now to fix this deal.

The LVCVA can't reclaim ownership of the slogan until it straightens out the legal mess it created on Nov. 9 when it surreptitiously sold the slogan for $1 without the board's approval.

The agreement accommodated R&R Partners, which had sued a California woman on behalf of the LVCVA for allegedly infringing on the "What happens here, stays here" trademark. The woman, Dorothy Tovar, was selling a risque line of clothing under the similar logo, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

R&R Partners, the creator of the slogan, needed to own the mark to bolster its legal standing against Tovar. The problem, however, was that in handing over the slogan to R&R Partners the LVCVA also gave the advertising agency the legal ability to profit from selling "What happens here, stays here" merchandise, as well as the rights to any monetary judgments won in court.

It was not a deal in the public's best interest, and it was solid evidence that someone needed to clamp down on the cozy, and sometimes incestuous, relationship between the LVCVA and R&R Partners.

The latter is starting today, as the suit continues to make its way though the court system.

Already the LVCVA has begun to change its ways on its own.

Unlike the Nov. 9 agreement, today's amendment won't be signed by Ralenkotter until the board actually has a chance to approve it.

This is the kind of public accountability that has been missing at the LVCVA.