LOOKING IN ON: CITY HALL

Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007 | 1:50 a.m.

The chapel workers are still there, passing out brochures to newly licensed couples looking for a legal, fast and inexpensive place to solemnize their marriages.

But the mood outside of the county's marriage bureau in the Regional Justice Center at 200 S. Third St. is a decidedly happier one just a month after the Las Vegas City Council revoked the business license of the Las Vegas Garden of Love.

"Actually, since they went out of business, we haven't had a single complaint," said Lynda Foresta, bureau operations manager. This from a woman who three months ago described the atmosphere outside the marriage bureau as so "horrible" that her employees didn't like to walk outside their office.

That's a significant shift, maybe the first sign that the industry might be able to dissipate the image of chapel-on-chapel fighting that some believe is part of the reason marriages in Las Vegas are on the decline.

The Garden of Love, which had one of the busiest wedding chapel businesses, was categorized as a "nuisance" by Las Vegas police and called worse by its competitors. Over two October days of testimony before the City Council, chapels accused the Garden of Love of endless intimidation tactics. The Garden of Love accused the other chapels of the same.

Several weeks after the council shut down the chapel, three ministers who worked at the Garden of Love - and who allegedly falsified marriage certificates by signing the names of witnesses who were not present - had their minister licenses revoked.

And now, there is a calm.

Another garden finally got its sign.

The City Council last week gave the go-ahead to a $50,000 grant to the Olympic Garden Strip Club, 1531 Las Vegas Blvd. South, after weeks of postponements and grousing about how the money was going to be used.

Since the "O.G." lies within the city's redevelopment district, it is eligible for up to $50,000 in taxpayer dollars to beautify its exterior.

Located just north of the Stratosphere, the topless club in early October went before the council with plans for a huge new sign with a gigantic "O" and "G" over a large digitized video screen that, in the version shown to the council, featured a smiling, attractive woman nude from the shoulders up.

Councilman Gary Reese, whose ward includes the Olympic Garden, complained that the screen was too big - especially since it might be flashing the smiling visages of scantily clad women down upon visiting Midwestern families tooling up and down Las Vegas Boulevard.

Reese got his wish, and the O.G. got its money, when the strip club came back with a design with a vastly scaled-down video screen and more neon.