Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2006 | 7:24 a.m.
Even Sin City is not without its conventions of morality -- at least on paper.
But pity the poor public servants who try to put those moral conventions on that paper. In a place purportedly unhitched from the morality of the rest of the country, how do those public servants know where to draw the lines between what is forbidden and what's not?
In Las Vegas for the past half century, the Clark County Commission has been the chief body wrestling with moral issues, as is apparent in its endless rewriting of the county liquor code.
Nudity is in one decade, out the next. Gay "behavior" is out one decade, in the next. And so it goes.
Richard Bryan, former Nevada governor and U.S. senator, said the language in the county liquor code shows the "bifurcated face" of Southern Nevada, "very liberal in so many respects, but in others quite conservative.
"It's a paradox," he said.
Little wonder the code has been amended more than 200 times during the past 52 years, creating a patchwork of disparate and sometimes conflicting values.
The issue of the moment is the proposed repeal of a 20-year-old ordinance prohibiting bars and nightclubs from paying cabdrivers for customers delivered to their doors.
If the commission approves that change of direction in early 2006 as expected, it will be following the long tradition of code amendments, additions and removals that reflect evolutionary shifts in the community's social climate, along with stark changes that often came as a reaction to new threats and scandals.
A look at the 1965 liquor code illustrates the priorities and prejudices of a Las Vegas that was far less complex or socially aware.
From its earliest days, the code prohibited the issuance of a liquor license to "a person who does not possess, or does not have a reputation for possessing a good moral character."
Other highlights include a rule forbidding women to serve booze in bars, and a ban on alcohol sales while the polls are open on election days, both of which were repealed within the coming decade.
Bryan said the ban on election-time alcohol sales was in accordance with state law, and the rule against barmaids consistent with the area's views toward women at the time.
"That may be kind of a cultural thing, as misguided as it may have been," he said.
By 1975, government officials pointed to the threat of moral decay stemming from a "trend toward a greater degree of undress by male and female personnel of liquor and gaming establishments."
As a result, they passed the first -- but certainly not the last -- liquor code amendments to regulate the "competitive commercial exploitation of males and females that is offensive and adverse to the public morals."
The new rules did not outlaw topless women in casinos and bars, only "the showing of the human male or female genitals or pubic area while not fully covered by an opaque material."
Bryan said he remembers that in the 1970s, much of the "adult entertainment" that had been limited to motels on the Strip had migrated to bars, which may have prompted the new rules. In general, sexual expression had become more open and mainstream.
"This was part of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s," he said.
It was also a time when corporate America began supplanting organized crime as the controlling force in Las Vegas, said Hal Rothman, a UNLV history professor and Sun columnist. That evolution in power may have led to the appearance of a crackdown on sex as the city strove to reach a broader tourist base, he said.
The liquor code of 1985 reflected a strong shift toward conservative behavior. The ban on nudity was expanded to include topless cocktail waitresses and even people wearing "any device or covering exposed to view which simulates the breast."
Other additions to a growing list of verboten conduct included "lewd or indecent" activities in a bar or its parking lot, and operating any liquor establishment that is a known "meeting place, hangout or rendezvous" for homosexuals.
The code included new restrictions relating to money, such as rules making it a violation for bars and clubs to offer gratuities to taxicab drivers.
The taxicab ordinance indicates how much influence liquor license holders had in the 1980s, Rothman said. Bar owners had complained about the cabbies' practice of soliciting tips in exchange for delivering customers.
"The mid-1980s was the toughest time (financially) in Las Vegas history," he said. "The county liquor licenses were a very important source of revenue in those days."
But the no-tipping rule has rarely been enforced, and the practice of trading cash for customers has escalated to the point that night-shift cabbies say that nightclub "bounties" are as much as a third of their income.
Nightclubs and other establishments, arguing that the bounties have gotten out of hand, urged the county to begin enforcing the no-tipping rule. County commissioners feared that cabbies would go on strike. They also said that enforcing the rule would be prohibitively expensive.
So instead of enforcing it, the commission plans to repeal the rule in early 2006.
As for nudity, the burgeoning topless dancing industry became the primary focus of changes to the liquor code in the mid-1990s, and that focus hasn't wavered. While references to homosexuals and vagrants had been removed from the code by 1995, rules outlining proper conduct for strippers were being added in clinical detail.
Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said county officials have tried to be sensitive to complaints about illegal sexual activities in bars and clubs, despite the reputation that "anything goes" in Las Vegas.
The ebb and flow of topless dancing restrictions may indicate a political conflict between satisfying the desire to "clean up" Las Vegas and preserving a key revenue source.
"Many people believe the strip clubs are the last vestiges of mob influence," Rothman said. "Some of them have a mob past, and some of them don't."
But for those sinners who want to enjoy or profit from moral transgressions ingrained in the culture and legend of Las Vegas, would even the most prohibitive liquor code deter them?
"Not a lick," Rothman said. "It has almost no importance in shaping moral conduct."
J. Craig Anderson can be reached at 259-2320 or at [email protected].
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