Club scene to get a p’s and q’s lesson

By Abigail Goldman

Monday, March 10, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Some Metro cops, DEA agents, Gaming Control officers and Strip nightclub owners walk into a room.

But there’s no punch line.

In the coming weeks, such a meeting will take place. It will be in the name of “cooperative law enforcement,” aimed at keeping the many nightclubs along the Strip on the up and up. The group will go over various laws pertaining to the clubs. Authorities are billing it as a seminar, a training session.

It’s also more evidence that Las Vegas’ nightclubs are tricky beasts — massive moneymakers that attract tourists partially because they invite debauchery, drinking and depravity. The Vegas club scene is low lights, loud music, pretty people, prodigious spenders — and the occasional fights, drug dealers, trolling prostitutes.

A certain amount of lawlessness is this city’s favorite selling point, yet behind the scenes, the law is trying to control casino crowds and carousers. They’re calling their planned sitdowns to chat about illegal activities at clubs “seminars,” but they could just as easily be called a sign of the times.

Just ask the Internal Revenue Service. Its agents raided Pure nightclub last month and still won’t say why. A search warrant obtained by the Sun showed it’s a criminal investigation into possible tax evasion.

The seminars were in the works long before the raid occurred, said Metro Capt. Curtis Williams, a former leader of the vice squad who is now head of the department’s South Central Command, which includes the Strip. Whether or not the raid encouraged police to get the ball rolling faster, on the other hand, is unknown. Multiple attempts to reach Williams for further comment were unsuccessful.

Nobody contacted by the Sun was willing to discuss how often the seminars would happen, who exactly would attend, and who, at the end of the day, would be training whom.

It’s seems fair to infer, however, that concerns over drug use or distribution in the clubs are one reason the agencies are getting together. Why else invite the Drug Enforcement Administration, after all? Mike Flanagan, chief of the local DEA office, says the purpose of the training session is to “offer assistance” to nightclub owners, who are often private and independent of the casino.

“The idea is that dealing with them, talking with them, we are helping across the board,” Flanagan said. “Everybody benefits that way — the community, the casinos, the clubs, everybody.”

Admittedly, Flanagan says, “there are a lot of bad club drugs out there.” But he, much like Gaming Control officials, insists the sessions are not in response to any particular incidents or specific concerns — just a friendly, general check-in to make sure everybody is playing by the rules. The purpose is to bring new club owners or new managers up to speed regarding laws they must follow, said Jerry Markling, chief of enforcement for the Gaming Control Board.

“Certainly the handling of patrons, guests, tourists, employees, whoever, inside these nightclubs are a concern to us and to Metro and to everyone,” Markling said.

Sound familiar? It’s a toned-down version of the letter Gaming Control distributed industrywide in February 2006 warning casinos they would be held accountable for any trouble occurring in those clubs. That note actually laid out the problems: “Of particular concern to the board are incidences of excessive inebriation, drug distribution and abuse, violence, the involvement of minors, and the handling of those individuals who become incapacitated while at the club.”

The note was, in part, prompted by former Sheriff Bill Young’s controversial complaint that gangster rap concerts were breeding violence on the Strip.

This time around, Gaming Control insists things are better. But there’s still a baseline of concern, which is inevitable in a nightclub empire, built on the backs of tourists willing to part with hundreds of dollars for bottle service and breakneck babes and some kind of buzz, legal or not.

“Obviously concerns exist on an ongoing basis,” Markling said.

So the word is going out again: Round everybody up for a refresher course on being good in a city bent on being bad.

Las Vegas Sun senior investigative reporter Jeff German contributed to this story.