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Published Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 9:34 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 11:22 a.m.
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Las Vegas adult club figure Michael Powers sued Clark County on Monday in a challenge to the constitutionality of an ordinance regulating sex clubs and defining them as "public nuisances."
In news stories in 2009, Powers described himself as the owner of the Power Exchange at 3610 S. Highland Drive near Spring Mountain Road and Interstate 15.
The Power Exchange says it caters to patrons 18 years of age and older and is an alcohol-free club. The Power Exchange says adults are provided condoms and other sex supplies and can engage in sex in either private or public areas that total 12,000 square feet.
On weekends, couples are charged $30 to enter and single men are charged $60, the club says on its Web site.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Monday, Powers says he has been cited by Clark County for "operating a sex club" in violation of the county code.
The code section at issue, according to the lawsuit, covers zoning and land use matters and defines "Sex Club" as "including but not limited to any club, party, group, center, establishment, business or parlor for swingers, adult encounters, adult social sexual encounters, partner-swapping, wife-swapping, or similar alternative lifestyles."
"Sex Club," the code reads, "means an establishment or business operated or maintained for the purpose of providing patrons the opportunity to voluntarily engage in and/or view live consensual sexual activity in exchange for money ... A sex club is a public nuisance per se."
In his lawsuit, Powers says he was working as an independent contractor at a licensed tanning salon at the club called Buns in the Sun when he was cited. Buns in the Sun is owned by another individual, Joyce Judge, the suit says.
The suit says Powers is the managing member of Power Exchange LLC, a Nevada limited liability company that is not licensed to do business in Nevada, and did not do business in Nevada, but that allowed Buns in the Sun to use the Power Exchange name in its business operation.
"Plaintiff Michael Powers is being charged in his sole capacity as an independent contractor with no ownership interest or management control in the business, under a section of a land use code that provides only definition of terms," the lawsuit charges.
The suit charges Powers' due process rights under the U.S. Constitution were violated when he was cited, that the ordinance at issue is unconstitutionally vague, the definition of a sex club is unconstitutionally overbroad and that Powers has been targeted for selective enforcement of the ordinance.
The suit seeks an injunction barring Clark County from prosecuting Powers or anyone else for violating the sex club code as well as an injunction specifically barring prosecution of independent contractors at such clubs for violating the zoning code.
The suit was filed by Las Vegas attorney Allen Lichtenstein, who regularly handles cases involving adult businesses and the First Amendment.
A Clark County spokesman on Tuesday said the county doesn't comment on pending litigation.
Powers, the lawsuit says, is a resident of California. The Power Exchange has another adult club there, in San Francisco. Both clubs are marketed to straight, gay and bisexual swingers.
That definition is indeed vague. Any motel could fall under it given that there are no restrictions such as "sole purpose". I'm sure other businesses could, too.
And just why are such places a public nuisance in the first place? Legalize prostitution in Las Vegas and that claim wouldn't hold up for 10 sec.
Take the sin out of Sin City and there is no reason to go there anymore.
I wish politicians could get over the weak-mined, politically correct assault on everything sex and start focusing on real municiple problems.
These places are not a nuisance. If you dont like them....dont go inside.
Somebody forgot to pay somebody an "Initiation Fee".
Or an owner at another club is paying his politician to squash this club.
What goes on in a properly managed sex environment is Far Safer that in an unmanaged, hidden environment.
Making stuff illegal does not make it go away.
A lot of good the war on drugs has done.
Make it legal and tax it. Politicians should listen to public health officials and what is done in the EU. EU society is far more evolved
AND HAS LESS CRIME.
Have the police ever been called to any disturbances there? Are the neighboring businesses complaining?
What exactly makes this "a public nuisance per se"?
What ever happened to live and let live?
let them exist they are not doing anyone any harm, the words are consenting adults...
Just more narrow-minded idiots we voted in. If they would make prostitution legal in Clark County (again dumb-ass, narrow-minded idiots in charge), tax same, have health checks, etc., we would have no need to spend valueable resources of the police patrolling for hookers on the street, booking them into the jails taking up valuable space needed for real crooks. What goes on inside a "club" of any type is not the buisness of the idiots that run this City. Want to get more money for tax revenue, tax sex, drugs and anything else these dummies think is too "sinful" to be heard or seen. Really, wish I were a fly on some of their bedrooms. Don't throw stones in glass houses politicians. You're house just might be broken.
Does the guy pay taxes to the city? here's another revenue stream that they will "kill" because someone has it up his ***** that its impropoer...
One aspect of government regulatory agencies and the media as well is a strong tendency to gravitate toward any issue with a tie to reproductive behavior. Often the public officials, while overtly claiming a puritan sense of saving the city, are inwardly driven to orbit the scene and engage it first hand. For many there is a paramont summit of importance for all things surounding all aspects of reproductive behavior with the interesting total exception of having children. Few other species engage in this outlet but it is clear it is the choice of many humans. Is this free will or conditioned behavior? Regardless it is what people want to do and poses zero threat to society and the well being of others.
The only "public nuisances" in NV are the elected officials who cater to a small minotiry of religious zealots who belong back in Utah(since they don't like it here in Sin City).
If you don't like it here, let nothing short of fear or stupidity stop you from leaving!
Ok, kudos to the County for attempting to rein in the adult industry, which does not, as a rule, make a very healthy environment for people trying to raise children, etc. You don't have to be a religious zealot to think that "swinging" is gross and not a healthy way to conduct yourself.
However, I'd have to agree with Powers that he is being singled out. If the county is so offended by this type of business then why haven't similar citations been given to Red Rooster, The Green Door, Hawks "Gym" (um yeah), Entourage and heaven only knows how many others we don't hear about? If they're going to go after one guy then they'll have to go after them all.
Once again it smells of someone not paying bribes and being punished for it.
Just what I want in my neighborhood, a sex club. At least the 4 registered sex offenders that live within a mile of my house and elemetary school will have someplace to go while the kids are in class.
"Swinging is gross" you say sportyyet(un)practical? And what do you know of it? Swinging is fun, exciting and practical. Cheating in a relationship is "gross", "unhealthy" and, it seems to me, pretty damn impractical--not swinging. Swinging couples are more open and honest in their relationships than their so-called vanilla counterparts.
And no, italiangal, sex offenders (like certain church officials, for example?) aren't part of the swing community because they are too messed up about sex (i.e. repressed) to begin with. Swingers don't have anything to do with kids--why would they? They can interact with each other.
And Power Exchange isn't in anyone's neighborhood unless you live in an industrial part of town behind the Rio and near I-15. It's just a place where consenting adults can go to hook up with each other. It happens all over Las Vegas all the time.
We should have had a red light district in Las Vegas long ago so we can regulate, tax and oversee zoning. This kind of stuff ain't going away so quit acting shocked that Sin City has actual sin.
Go, Power Exchange, Go! Force 'em to confront the fact that they want sanitized sin--just enough to make money--but are too prudish and impractical to come up with something that really works for this town.
Hope this place is their this weekend. My wife and I will be their to check it out.
"Ok, kudos to the County for attempting to rein in the adult industry, which does not, as a rule, make a very healthy environment for people trying to raise children, etc."
Can someone please explain what affect these business have on children? It's not like they're letting them in the door, or letting them hang outside, or want ANYTHING to do with them.
The guys "exercising their free speech" by handing out the barely covered in-call strippers -- okay, then you may have some credibility there. But these companies located in out of the way places, with very little advertising (and certainly none pointed towards children) aren't hurting our kids.
PEople should be pissed that they charge single guy's 60 dollers to get in.Now that's what I'm mad about...
You stay classy San Diego
publicbj said : " Ok, kudos to the County for attempting to rein in the adult industry, which does not, as a rule, make a very healthy environment for people trying to raise children, etc."
Who would want to raise children in this area?
Any chick would make a killin without trickin if she would charge $5 for any single guy as an escort while considering themselves a couple so the guy would save the extra $25 cover to get in.
I bet most guys would pay the $30 cover plus the $5 fee rather than the $60.
He should have done like the Green Door does, state that it's a health and fitness club. You would be under the same rules of the Las Vegas Athletic Club and 24 Hour Fitness.