Prostitution and taxpayer dollars for a strip club sign.
In other words, just another week in Vegas.
But something's needed for the city to stir its residents from apathy - especially after a week when the city's mouthpiece, Mayor Oscar Goodman, tripped to New York City to cheerlead/confer with investment bankers and the like about downtown development and how smart they'd look for investing here.
So, here's the word again, just to re - pique your interest: " prostitution. "
And here's what's being done about it. The City Council will likely approve a measure to accept $152,248 from the federal government via Clark County to fund a program in Municipal Court called the Female Prostitution Prevention Program.
The program's aim, the council's agenda says, will be to "provide assistance to women who have been engaged in alcohol, drugs and prostitution and to counsel these women on the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV."
The program also provides something invaluable to someone trying to get off the streets. The money will be used to subcontract "with a non profit organization to provide bed space for these women while going through rehabilitation, as an alternative to being incarcerated."
Alexis Kennedy, a UNLV assistant professor in criminal justice who researches prostitution and human trafficking, called it "encouraging that they're putting any money behind" the program.
On the strip-joint front, a touchy political matter that has been twice postponed might get a final hearing before the City Council on Wednesday.
That's when a decision is expected on whether the city will give $50,000 to Olympic Gardens, a strip club on Las Vegas Boulevard South , to offset the cost of a new sign at the club. The city allows businesses within the redevelopment district, which includes most of downtown Las Vegas, to apply for money to improve building exteriors.
Olympic Gardens went before the council last month for approval of the grant. Councilman Gary Reese, whose district includes the club, postponed a vote because he didn't like the proposed sign, which has a large video screen beneath a massive "OG."
As shown to the council, the screen portrayed an attractive woman, from about the shoulders up, beckoning customers. Reese thought the sign would be inappropriate for tourists from Iowa or other locales of relative innocence, especially if they were driving along Las Vegas Boulevard with their children.
If the city approves the strip club grant, however, it won't be a first. In 2006, Glitter Gulch, at the Fremont Street Experience, was awarded $50,000 for the same purpose.
Speaking of Las Vegas Boulevard businesses, the Garden of Love wedding chapel might be closed, but fallout from a two-day hearing over its business license lingers.
Almost two weeks ago, the City Council voted against an appeal by the chapel to reinstate its license, citing numerous complaints about the chapel and the fact that Las Vegas police had deemed the business a "public nuisance."
During testimony, Goodman ordered police to find two ministers who worked at the Garden of Love and bring them to the council to testify.
The issue was whether the ministers had signed the name of co-owner Cheryl Luell as a witness on more than a dozen marriage certificates. On the date that Luell's name was signed, or stamped, she testified , , she wasn't at the chapel.
With attorneys at their sides, the two ministers refused to testify on the grounds that it might incriminate them.
Now County Clerk Shirley Paraguirre is going to ask them again.
Paraguirre has scheduled a license revocation hearing on the fifth floor of the Regional Justice Center for Nov. 16. The matter will be a simple one, she said.
"We'll just present them with the certified copies of the documents, and ask if they did, indeed, stamp them," she said.
If they did, they could lose their minister's licenses.
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