Posted on 07/13/2007 7:03:44 PM PDT by radar101
The legal brothel industry in Nevada may soon launch a promotional campaign in Las Vegas.
This week, a federal judge ruled that a law banning brothels from advertising in Clark County is unconstitutional.
The world's oldest profession may no longer be a deep, dark secret.
You may soon find ads for legal brothels on any street corner in Las Vegas.
Residents see racy billboards for gentlemen's clubs, topless dance revues and escort services all around town.
Soon, new billboards, leaflets and newspaper ads may be popping up to promote legal brothels.
Some say this move is bad business. But a federal judge says they can, striking down a state law that banned brothel ads in Clark County.
There is no word yet if the state plans to challenge the decision which could affect the ruling.
Watch the Action Video to see how residents and tourists feel about this ruling.
The brothels outside Reno are in the phone book as “escort services” but I have never seen them advertise anywhere else.
Bill Clinton urges Demos to change convention location to Vegas!
Now, is it right? Of course not.
Is it legal, yes.
Has anyone driven up from NY to MA through CT and RI? Count the billboards advertising 'Gentlemens Clubs'.
>>but isn’t this the same issue as the widely accepted no cigarette ads on TV? .. how can it possible be applied to one case and not the other?<<
Good question. My guess is, the Feds would answer that by saying that the Nevada brothels are intrastate businesses while the cigarette industry is an interstate business covered by Congress’ constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce.
Still...it’s a glaring double standard.
Note to Republican elected officials - open brothels in your states so you don’t have to break the law.
Mayhap the Judge has a personal stake in this? Just say’n. ;-)
Let's see, still working on it, well , think I have it now....... How about you put escort reno in the google search block and then hit enter.
What about children? If the product is not legal for every person on the street then I think the community should be able to regulate the ads.
Does this decision make Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the “head-master” (as opposed to headmistress) of the brothels? After all, he represents Nevada when he is not representing Al Qaeda.
I wonder if Little Dickl*ss Durbin (D-Ill) will be going to Vegas anytime soon? If so, he’d better watch out because he could be run over by the rush of Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd to get there ASAP.
When they heard the decision, they said” We’re coming to the Wide Open Spaces”.
No comment necessary,n’est pas?
Wasn’t yesterday the anniversary of Ted Kennedy’s swimming prowess at Chappaquidick? Sorry, MJ, you deserved better.
Now they are calling “it” a “stake”? That’s a new one on me.
Guess that explains the old saying “Staking my claim”.
LOL!
Broadcast airwaves are a scarce public resource, licensed by the federal government. There is no such rationale to police the content of print ads, signage or the Internet, all places where cigarettes can be and are advertized.
Let’s go to Reno!!!
No, only in certain counties. It is not legal in Clark County, (Las Vegas).
Just let me know if you wanna go
to that home out on the range.
They gotta lotta nice girls.
Have mercy.
A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.
Well, I hear it's fine if you got the time
and the ten to get yourself in.
A hmm, hmm.
And I hear it's tight most ev'ry night,
but now I might be mistaken.
hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
Have mercy.
See #16.
Ok, how many billboards?
The judge needs to be nominated to the Supremes! Woo hoo!
That's a good point, and it's possible that either the city or county could ban billboards for services that are illegal in their jurisdiction. I don't see how they could ban flyers or print ads.The ;law that was overturned was a state law, so a local ordinance might have different legal standing.
Still...it’s a glaring double standard.
My guess is that they know if they try it someone is going to ask them to justify it the same way the jusify the tobacco ad bans. The current administration has enough problems without having the Surgeon General issue a warning that sex is bad for you.
Cigarettes and hard liquor are legal, too, but there are lots of restrictions regarding their advertisment. Lucky Stikes and Philip Morris used to sponsor television shows and they haven't been able to advertise on TV in decades.
Seriously? They were advertising in the street (handing out flyers) right on the strip. Okay, here’s my question then: the Strip is NOT part of Vegas, that much I know, so is it also outside of the county?
What happens in Vegas stays...until your penicillin shot breaks through.
And that is a very sad thing in the former land of the free and home of the brave.
If they absolutely feel it is an issue of free speech then let the billboards be in words only. No pictures.
Also a tyrranical travesty.
It's for the children.
Actually, the FCC can set rules and regulations, so you could (if you were so inclined) argued that they have the right.
Those products can't be banned from, e.g., sports magazines. (At least, not yet.)
Only in broadcasting. And I think there are some restrictions on placement of liquor and tobacco ads, say, near schools, that have been upheld as constitutional.
Actually, liquor distillers were never banned from advertising on TV -- thee was a voluntary agreement among the major players and the TV networks. After years of beer and wine cutting into liquor's share of the market, some companies walked away from the agreement. I've seen ads for Crown Royal and Bacardi -- those are the only two I remember off the top of my head.
Cigarettes are advertised in print media, billboards, etc. They are not advertised on television due to FCC rules.
Brothels have been prohibited from any type of advertising, now print media is open to them. I wonder if the FCC will let them do tv spots?
Imagine the superbowl ads!
I had a great idea for a legal celebrity brothel in Nevada.
The idea began as a website that would have a huge listing of celebrities, with their ratings of how many people would pay to have sex with them, and for how much. Paris Hilton might have a rating of 783,983 people with a top price of $500,000; with Abe Vigoda at the bottom of the list with 3 people and $15.
Most of the website would be like an anonymous MySpace, where the public would put their picture and personal details then select 10 celebrities from the list, and how much they would be willing to pay to have sex with them. This information could only be viewed by the chosen celebrities.
Now only a fraction of celebrities would be willing to have sex with a stranger for money, so there would be a disclaimer that most of them are not for sale. But if a celebrity was interested, they could find out how who their real fans are, and how much they would pay, without everybody knowing about it.
Then, with the website as the intermediary, they could agree to meet in Nevada, at a special brothel, with the website keeping the payment in escrow. Either one could back down after this face to face meeting, with only a modest penalty including their airfare, or else they could have sex, after which the celebrity would be paid.
Most celebrities would be entertainment people and sports stars, and lots of them would check the website daily, just to see how “popular” they are.
The casinos might also be interested in this deal, for when a celebrity goes to Vegas and ends up a hundred grand in the hole, the casino might suggest that they make some quick cash via the website, to clear up their debts. The website contacts the chosen fan and says, fly to Nevada with a bank check in hand for this amount, now.
Celebrities are also often caught in the predicament that if they aren’t working, they are starving, and a single night with a well-to-do fan might pay their rent for six months.
The celebrity brothel, which would be more like a nice motel, could also be an entertainment host, with the sex just being the minimum to close the deal. If the celebrity actually liked the fan, they could hang out and do other things. That might be part of the deal, as well.
But you have to admit, given your past fantasies, who would be on your own personal “top 10 list”, and assuming you had the money, for how much?
Obviously, the "Worlds Oldest Profession" has shown an amazing resilience in spite of its illegal status!
Prostitution is legal in most, if not all, of the other counties in Nevada.
The Strip, aka Las Vegas Blvd, IS part of Las Vegas. It is not a separate entity.
WHOOT!!! LOL
That may be. It doesn’t mean that they should just have no right to try and keep things from getting even worse.
You can assume whatever you want. How you use your land is a matter of your rights, up to and until it keeps me from exercising mine -- if you're upstream, there are limits on your right to divert, dam or pollute the water before it gets to me. You can't engage in activity on your land that sends a toxic cloud across mine.
My basic philosophy is to have government regulation only where necessary, and only to the extent necessary, to protect rights and the fundamental public good, where the market structurally cannot . Air, water and airwaves are such areas.
Radio waves do not observe property lines, or borders for that matter. Without licensing, the entire radio dial would be a useless hash of transmitters trying to drown each other out. That is not an issue the market or an appeal to property rights can address; physics trumps legal philosophy. Only the federal government is capable of licensing the airwaves and enforcing it.
Once you accept the necessity of government licensing, the licensing body (the FCC in the US) has to have criteria for who gets a license, and how to determine whether or not licenses are renewed. Those criteria are set via the democratic process, by a body exercising powers delegated to it by Congress.
There is no such legitimate claim to regulation of the content of satellite, cable or the Internet, which are effectively unlimited and use resources built and run by private companies. Content in those media is effectively unregulated, so if you want to write the FCC to complain about CNN or Fox News, don't bother -- they do not require an FCC license and are not subject to FCC regulation.
Actually, contrary to popular belief, the FCC technically did not fine the CBS network for the Janet Jackson boob flash. Networks do not require an FCC license -- their individual affiliates do. The fines were levied against CBS O&Os -- an industry term for stations Owned and Operated by the network.
Print media are also not subject to government regulation, for the same reason. My printing a newspaper, magazine, book or flyer does not impinge on your ability to print one. My podcast doesn't stop yours, nor does my cable channel or blog. We can compete for audience in a free market. Where there's no scarcity, the free market can and does work in determining what gets watched , listened to or read.
Whew! No more campaign ads!
Turns out that one of that branch's largest commercial customers was a local gentleman's club (that shall remain nameless), and every morning, we had to open and count their overnight deposit bags...by hand, since our cash counters were not working properly at the time.
I still try not to think about where all those $1 and $5 bills had been before they got to the branch.
No. That's ridiculous. Look, there are rules about what kind of ads can run on television during certain hours right now. Is that unconstitutional? How free are we if we are not free to create a wholesome environment in which to raise our children? No one's freedom should feel threatened just because he can't see an ad for a brothel on television every fifteen minutes of the day or on the billboard on his way to dropping off the kids at school. Adults who frequent brothels should be adult enough to seek out information on their own. Their freedom is not the only freedom in question here.
The acid test for those who believe that prostitution should be legalized or at a minimum, decriminalized is to ask themselves if they would have any moral problem with their mother, or their daughter working in a brothel?
Interesting....
Advertising legal brothels in Las Vegas was illegal. But you can’t walk 50’ on the streets outside of the hotels and casinos without seeing stands of multi-page advertisements, or people handing out those same sort of fliers, advertising illegal hookers (”escorts” and “dancers”... Yeah, right!)
Mark
Huh? "The Strip" is just a city street in Las Vegas... Specifically, Las Vegas Blvd.
Mark
Harry the “head-master” is a eunich.
No, it's not the acid test of anything except personal morality. Of course I know what you mean by your comment, and I would indeed "have a moral problem" if a family member became a prostitute, but your comment is simply inapplicable, except as a personal (non-legal) matter.
In America, the legality or criminality of an action is a matter of law, not personal morality. We are a nation of laws, not men.
My mother's decisions about what she does with her life are no more under my control (moral or legal) than they are under yours. Likewise my daughter's decisions, once she attains majority and at some point is no longer under my roof. I may disapprove, and I may counsel them against the decision, but I'm not going to restrict their freedom to make decisions I don't approve of.
Basically, you're implying that if the women of our families make personal decisions that we don't approve of, we should take up "honor killing", like the animals in the Middle East do; just instead of killing their body, we kill their freedom by making their choices illegal.
I suggest you reconsider your comment. It flies in the face of the personal freedom America stands for.
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