BROTHELS:

Legislature will pass on legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Carson City — The debate over legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas will have to continue on Internet message boards and around office water coolers. The 2009 Legislature won’t be taking it up.

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George Flint, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, was informed this week by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley that a proposal to allow legal brothels in the state’s most populous counties will not be considered this session.

Legislative staff had been drafting a bill to allow the mayor of Las Vegas to issue up to three brothel licenses as a sort of pilot program until a brothel licensing board could be established.

In exchange for the opportunity to expand into the state’s urban counties, the industry volunteered to be taxed by the state.

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, confirmed such a bill had been in the works.

“The question was broached, in these hard economic times, whether the city of Las Vegas should have legal houses of prostitution,” he said. “Flint supported it, many groups do not.”

Anderson said legislative staff will not finish drafting the bill.

“It’s not a small thing,” Anderson said. “We already have a full plate ... before we take this. It’s a matter of time.”

Rural counties sometimes collect large fees from the businesses, but the state has resisted taxing them because of the stigma attached to prostitution.

Buckley met with Flint in December to talk about the proposal and agreed to discuss it with him again in February.

After their meeting this week in Buckley’s Legislative Building office, a somber Flint emerged to declare that his yearlong behind-the-scenes effort had failed.

“Leadership in the Assembly told me they would not take it under advisement,” he said. “I’m disappointed. I felt they at least would look at the merits of the issue.”

Asked why the bill would not be heard, Buckley said Wednesday: “I do not support legalizing prostitution.”

Buckley runs a disciplined caucus and her strong opposition to a bill guarantees its failure.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, made national headlines last month after the Sun reported he would be willing to grant a hearing on proposals to legalize and regulate prostitution in Las Vegas and Nevada’s other urban areas. (State law currently allows prostitution only in counties with fewer than 400,000 residents, meaning it’s banned in Clark and Washoe counties.)

The news coverage reignited a debate that has raged off and on for years. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has periodically called for a public discussion of legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas as a way to redevelop downtown.

Despite seeing some momentum in the Senate for the proposal, Flint said Buckley’s opposition means the issue is dead.

“There’s a sadness. It’s the only major industry in the state that doesn’t pay anything” in taxes to the state, he said. “I’ve seen legal and regulated, and illegal and unregulated. The first is better.”

He continued, “Forty-seven years in this business, you win some, you lose some. I’ve come to blame myself.”

David McGrath Schwartz can be reached at (775) 687-4597 or at david.schwartz@lasvegassun.com.

Discussion: 13 comments so far…

By johnevegas

2/12/09 at 6:31 a.m.

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"Buckley said Wednesday: "I do not support legalizing prostitution.""

Good to know the welfare of the state as a whole is dependent on the personal perspective of a single individual. Even when the state is desperate for taxes. Nice...

Hey Buckley, it's already legal here! Maybe you would like Utah more?
By pmmart

2/12/09 at 7:06 a.m.

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OH WELL!

We still have one form of legalized prostitution here in Clark county as well as America.

That being those who blindly support any candidate of the two major political party's.... qualifications or "baggage" be damned.
By KillerB

2/12/09 at 8:22 a.m.

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Good point made about Buckley.

So this state has an entire industry not only untaxed but volunteering to be taxed, and the state turned it down? Or rather the sheep in the House just followed their leader against the state's best interests?

Wonder how much more this legislature will add to the tax burden of the small businesses and just regular people??

Hypocrites.
By jfnance32

2/12/09 at 8:32 a.m.

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I agree that since in reality it is already "legal" because law enforcement of prostitution is so weak that they should go ahead and tax it.

Prostitution itself is bad and harmful to society. Expert studies has shown that a super majority of the workers were sexuality abuse by family members in their youth. Expert studies have shown that average starting age is below 18. Expert studies have shown that a majority of these workers get rape or beaten at some point in their line of work. Expert studies have shown that human trafficing (slavery) is associated with prostitution in large urban areas.

STD testing will not protect the prostitution workers. It offers limited protection to John's.

Expert studies has shown that condoms are not effective in preventing the transfer of some STD's.

But sometimes we have to reconized that the citizens are conducting corruption to a certain level that law enforcement against it is is no longer effective.

We have to sometimes to raise the white flag like we do for smoking and beer and liquor. All those things are bring great harm to society.

We should at least tax it.
By johnevegas

2/12/09 at 12:30 p.m.

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"It offers limited protection to John's."

Jim's too!
By KillerB

2/12/09 at 12:31 p.m.

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There you go again with your unqualified opinions presented as facts, jfnance. Easy to make up by just saying "experts say" or "studies show."

Doesn't fly, at least with me. The fact prostitution is "illegal" unless a law is passed making it "legal" ignores the laws of nature and reality. It isn't called "the world's oldest profession" for nothing.
By KDR81

2/12/09 at 12:42 p.m.

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J,

Being sexually abused in your youth does not make prostitution bad. It makes being sexually abused in your youth bad.
By jfnance32

2/12/09 at 1:02 p.m.

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Being sexually abused in one's youth impairs one's ability to make quality life decisions and makes a person an easy mark for pimps and other abusers in life. Most of them are void of any notion of self-worth which makes entering into the prostitution business an easier decision.

The super majority of teens runaways are sexual abused by family members.

Prostitution becomes a road well traveled by these victims of child sexual abused.

Human trafficking (slavery) is another source of prostitution workers.

I am OK with taxing prostitution if a large share of the tax revenue is poured into mental health programs for the sexual abused, law enforcement against human trafficking and teen runaway centers.

Prostitution is a corruption of society.

There is very little good that comes from prostitution.
By KillerB

2/12/09 at 6:21 p.m.

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This whole "sexually abused in one's youth" argument is far too vague to set any standards by. In the past I used to read the hard studies on this. Example: there's the whole Dworkin/McKinnon school of thought which says a guy walking naked to the bathroom in the middle of the night and unintentionally encounters a child in the hallway is sexual abuse. That's part of the shift of sexual abuse/rape to mean anything that makes a female uncomfortable in any sexual situation.

But let's get to the bottom line, jfnance -- it's a good thing you don't get to make the life decision of any woman (or man) who goes into that line of work. As long as she/he consents to it the state cannot rightfully make that choice for that citizen.

Of course, according to Dworkin/McKinnon, no adult women can consent to any sexual act since they are an enslaved and oppressed class.

So glad the 90s are over.
By getalife

2/13/09 at 1:37 p.m.

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Carson City is worried all the "whores" (legislature and lobbyists) will leave Carson and move to Vegas.

I wonder if Obama will call them on it. LMAO
By vegasj

2/13/09 at 4:51 p.m.

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Las Vegas police and prosecutors have launched an unprecedented crackdown on repeat prostitution offenders who operate inside Strip hotels.

As part of the Vice Enforcement Top Offenders (VETO) initiative, the police vice unit created a list of the 50 "most prolific prostitutes" in town, women they say have the longest records of prostitution-related crimes in Southern Nevada.

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