Chapel owners say ordinance is a win-lose

By Sam Skolnik

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The scene outside the Clark County Marriage Bureau in downtown Las Vegas has long been chaotic, a place where aggressive handbillers for wedding chapels often verbally and physically harass one another — as well as happy couples looking for a nice little spot to get married.

Now a proposed Las Vegas City Council ordinance devised to make it tougher for the handbillers to reach potential customers and to make it easier for the city to conduct background checks on chapel employees has caused a big rift among the small society of local chapel owners.

The council’s pending action is in part a response to Sun stories last year detailing overly aggressive tactics by some chapel handbillers.

About half of the roughly dozen chapel owners and employees at a council committee meeting Tuesday suggested that the proposed law, which would mandate that chapel handbillers stay at least 100 feet from the front door of the marriage bureau, would push them only slightly farther away from the door than where they now stand.

That proposal doesn’t go far enough, they said, adding that the handbillers are giving the whole industry a bad image and need to be reined in as much as possible.

“There were and still are incidents that go on on a regular basis that are distasteful,” said Stephen Smith, a Baptist minister who officiates at eight to 10 weddings per week for three downtown chapels.

“A 100-foot rule is wise because it spreads people out,” Smith said.

Smith was joined by about half of the meeting’s participants when asked by Councilman Ricki Barlow whether the handbillers should be moved as far away as 150 or 200 feet.

But an equal number of chapel workers and owners argued forcefully that moving their handbillers — their main sales force — that far away would devastate their business.

They’ve heeded the city’s warnings and shouldn’t be punished further, they said.

“It’s unfair because that’s my livelihood,” said Jupiter Desphy of the Heavenly Bliss Wedding Chapel, who said his small business is family-run. A 150- to 200-foot restriction “would just wipe us right out,” Desphy said.

Under the proposed law, all new chapel owners would be required to obtain “privileged” business licenses, compelling them to pay for criminal background checks for their employees. Existing chapel owners also might be required to obtain the special licenses, at city officials’ discretion.

Wedding chapel business licenses cost $400 per year, while privileged licenses cost about $750.

The Sun reported in August that after years of aggressive tactics from the handbillers, the situation had reached a boil on March 27, 2007, when one handbiller allegedly knifed another man working for a different chapel. There also have been countless stories of lower-level forms of harassment.

The situation outside the marriage bureau lately has become somewhat more manageable, most of the involved parties agreed. They say that is in part because of the council’s actions against the Garden of Love wedding chapel — widely considered the worst culprit and the one that employed the person charged in the knifing. In October, the council unanimously revoked Garden of Love’s license.

Councilman Gary Reese, who proposed the new ordinance, said the issue is clear.

“This was a very bad thing,” Reese said. “It has really given the industry a black eye.”

Cliff Evarts, owner of the Vegas Wedding Chapel, said he has stopped paying handbillers to advertise his chapel, because of both continuing problems outside the marriage bureau and a desire to heed the city’s request that the chapels voluntarily quit handbilling.

But Evarts said he’s lost about 25 percent of his business by not using handbillers. “It’s been a big-time hit,” he said.

The council committee delayed a decision on whether to recommend that the full council pass the proposed restrictions. The committee will meet again June 17, the day before the full council is scheduled to review the issue.