SCAPA Las Vegas :: Sex Work News

The Nevada Supreme Court has overruled a lower court to uphold a city ordinance banning lap dances. This seems to have caught everyone by surprise. According to the Review-Journal : "In the decision, Justice Nancy Becker said the city ordinance was intended to prohibit lap dances." City attorney Brad Jerbic is now facing the horror of that reality for the local economy. Though Jerbic won the case he seems to disagree with his victory telling the Review-Journal: "The ordinance never banned lap dances." It only (if you check the offences the dancers performed in the case) bans rubbing your butt on man's lap or putting your boobs in his face. Isn't that exactly what a lap dance is? Whatever, but that is the point: all of this is in the interpretation. So the good will of police and not the language of the law is what Jerbic is expecting people to trust here. But ACLU of Nevada general counsel Allen Lichentein in the article notes that "if he had a client who was a stripper, he would advise her that lap dancing is illegal in city limits." And, if I had a friend who wanted to go to a strip club in Las Vegas and as advice for you LA tourists who are thinking about it: customers can be cited as well. Not that this is likely to happen. But if you get a lap dance in Las Vegas right now you are clearly entering a gray area of the law and it is interesting how this will play out. Off the top of my head, among the popular clubs that are impacted: Crazy Horse Too, Olympic Garden, and Treasurers. When I just now called Treasures to confirm they were in the city the woman who answered the phone wasn't sure at first and had to check. Someone from Scores is looking into the same question and is going to call me back. That difference as of now is very significant.

You see, many strip clubs (Saphire, Seamless and Sin for example) fall outside city limits, and those outside the city aren't affected, because they fall under county ordinances. (There are rare exceptions like Palomino which is covered by yet another entity, the city of North Las Vegas). The county has a much more focused yet permissive set of lap dance rules. Some are odd: don't let a stripper touch your feet! But, in general, the county allows legal lap dances. The last time the county commissioners messed with those rules a few wound up convicted of felonies; so the current county rules seems likely to remain more liberal than the city's ordinance and less enforced. I wonder if the economic interests of the city strip clubs will get the ordinance changed. I wonder if dancers at city clubs will be warned about this new jeopardy. I will have much more on this story on Monday including a list of which clubs land where on the map. But, for now, when it comes to a lap dance in Las Vegas let the buyer (and, seller) beware.