Sidewalk protections: Adult-ad distributors say ruling will aid business on Strip

An outcall-service operator believes a new federal appellate court ruling gives him fresh ammunition to distribute nude-dancing advertisements on sidewalks that Strip resorts deem private property.

S.O.C. Inc. President Richard Soranno of Las Vegas is celebrating a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision rendered earlier this month that rejected the Venetian hotel-casino's attempt to ban Culinary Union picketers from its private sidewalks.

The court ruled 2-1 that the sidewalks constitute a public forum because they are part of the public thoroughfare used by Strip pedestrians. Soranno said he believes that the ruling will help him reverse a Nevada Supreme Court decision in May that granted the Mirage hotel-casino permission to ban his company from distributing handbills on the resort's private sidewalks.

"There is a supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution and the federal courts rule," Soranno said. "The sidewalks on the Strip are a public forum, all of them. You can have a private sidewalk, but you cannot have a private right of way."

Soranno said that because nude dancing is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment, he has the right to advertise those services in a public forum. He also uses the handbills to promote his website, www.vegasgirls.com.

"You can paint your sidewalk any color or put in gold bricks, but when you give someone a right of way, you lose the majority of your rights to privatization," Soranno said. "You can't throw somebody off your sidewalk because he's black or handicapped or you don't like his political stance."

But MGM MIRAGE spokesman Alan Feldman said his company's case differs from the Venetian dispute and believes Soranno's motion for reconsideration will be rejected by the state court.

"In our case, we were talking about commercial speech and the selling of products on our property," Feldman said. "The Venetian case dealt more with pure First Amendment issues, the expression of opinions. The people passing out handbills are not expressing opinions, but we'll see what the court decides."

The Clark County Commission, with the support of many resorts, has attempted in vain to rid the Strip of the racy handbills through ordinances that have been declared unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit. Law enforcement authorities believe the outcall services are fronts for illegal prostitution, a charge Soranno and his fellow operators have repeatedly denied.

There also have been complaints from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that the handbill distributors harass tourists and litter the sidewalks.

"For us it is purely a safety issue," LVCVA spokesman Rob Powers said. "We have received complaints from tourists who said they were forced out onto the street. It's not unusual for us to get complaints, especially after conventions and trade shows at our building.

"It's also not unusual for hundreds of these handbills to end up on the street. If there's not a trash can around, they're just dropped on the ground."

Although ordinances banning adult entertainment handbills on the Strip have been struck down by the 9th Circuit, Metro Police still enforces other county ordinances that prevent individuals from obstructing pedestrians, Deputy District Attorney Mitchell Cohen said.

"You cannot obstruct the sidewalks," Cohen said. "You can't block access to driveways."

Cohen said handbill distributors are allowed on the sidewalks as long as they do not obstruct pedestrians or traffic. The Mirage and other resorts that do not want adult-entertainment advertisers on their private sidewalks must obtain court orders to remove them, Cohen said.

That's what happened to Jaime Romero, president of Believers Inc., which distributes adult-entertainment advertisements for Soranno and other businessmen. Romero was ordered in 1999 by Clark County District Court to pay a $10,000 fine for violating a prior agreement not to distribute the fliers on the private sidewalk of the former Sands hotel-casino.

Romero now believes he has grounds for an appeal, or at least to resume distribution of the handbills on private Strip sidewalks, thanks to the Venetian ruling.

"The sidewalks have always been open to the public," Romero said. "It would be wrong to take the sidewalks away from the people."

Romero said his employees, including those who fill racks with the handbills, have received about 25 sidewalk obstruction citations on the Strip over the past three years. Each citation carries a fine of up to $70, though Romero said he has overturned some in court.

"It's a form of discrimination," Romero said.

Although there are usually five to seven outcall companies that advertise on the Strip at any given time, Soranno has maintained the highest profile. It was Soranno who won a 1998 decision from the 9th Circuit that declared the county's anti-handbill ordinance unconstitutional.

The federal appellate court even referred to that ruling in its Venetian decision when it stated that "we have previously held that 'the public streets and sidewalks located within the Las Vegas Resort District' are public fora."

In the Mirage case, however, the state Supreme Court by a 5-1 margin upheld a preliminary injunction issued by District Judge Michael Cherry against Soranno and fellow outcall operator Hillsboro Enterprises Inc. But the ruling was complicated by the fact that the majority was split into two factions.

One faction -- Justices Cliff Young, Deborah Agosti and Nancy Becker -- ruled that the private sidewalks in front of the Mirage and its adjoining resort, the Treasure Island hotel-casino, did not qualify as public forums.

The other two justices in the majority, William Maupin and Miriam Shearing, argued that the Strip's private sidewalks may be considered public forums for purposes such as "union protests or religious proselytizing" but not for commercial handbilling. The lone dissenting justice, Robert Rose, argued that the private sidewalks are public forums to which "the full protections of the First Amendment apply," but added that "commercial speech promoting illegal activity enjoys no such protection."

Soranno said that means the court was split 3-3 on whether private Strip sidewalks are public forums, and therefore reached no decision on that issue. He said that gives the Venetian ruling even more weight because of the majority decision on the public forum question in that case.

"The Venetian case was the strongest argument the resorts had for private rights of way, and they lost," Soranno said. "But out of respect for the Nevada Supreme Court I will not have any company I am president of hand out anything in front of the Mirage until we lift the injunction."

One of his attorneys, Cal Potter of Las Vegas, held out hope that the state Supreme Court would reconsider and reverse its Mirage ruling. He noted the irony of the fact that the Mirage and Treasure Island are across the Strip from the Venetian.

"We have a stronger argument now that the 9th Circuit has ruled in favor of the union," Potter said. "You now have two kinds of law depending on what side of the street you're on. That's very strange."

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