The white lines painted on various sidewalks along the Strip to prohibit obstructions to pedestrianism are not the problem, says Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada. The problem, rather, is that police are now using the ordinance behind those white stripes—Clark County Code 16.11—to scare off smut-peddlers with the threat of a misdemeanor when nothing in that law prohibits the passing out of literature.
“It’s back-door censorship,” says Lichtenstein, “and it goes against court orders.”
Indeed:
• This past March, a federal judge declared a 1997 Clark County law aimed at deterring smut-peddlers from the Strip and the Las Vegas Convention Center unconstitutional.
• Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals deemed a similar city ordinance unconstitutional.
• In 1998, a Nevada federal judge tossed out the city’s restrictions on leafleting Downtown, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision five years later.
In its chronic battles with smut-peddlers, government just can’t seem to win. So will this be its last effort to circumvent the First Amendment and rid the Strip of peddlers?
“I wish this would be the last time,” says Lichtenstein. “I wish the government which tells people to obey the law would start obeying the law themselves.”