Nevada Brothel Association

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Legislature will pass on legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas

(David McGrath Schwartz | Las Vegas Sun) – The debate over legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas will have to continue on Internet message boards and around office water coolers. The 2009 Legislature won’t be taking it up.

George Flint, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, was informed this week by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley that a proposal to allow legal brothels in the state’s most populous counties will not be considered this session.

Legislative staff had been drafting a bill to allow the mayor of Las Vegas to issue up to three brothel licenses as a sort of pilot program until a brothel licensing board could be established.

In exchange for the opportunity to expand into the state’s urban counties, the industry volunteered to be taxed by the state.

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, confirmed such a bill had been in the works.

“The question was broached, in these hard economic times, whether the city of Las Vegas should have legal houses of prostitution,” he said. “Flint supported it, many groups do not.”

Anderson said legislative staff will not finish drafting the bill.

“It’s not a small thing,” Anderson said. “We already have a full plate … before we take this. It’s a matter of time.”

Rural counties sometimes collect large fees from the businesses, but the state has resisted taxing them because of the stigma attached to prostitution.

Buckley met with Flint in December to talk about the proposal and agreed to discuss it with him again in February.

After their meeting this week in Buckley’s Legislative Building office, a somber Flint emerged to declare that his yearlong behind-the-scenes effort had failed.

“Leadership in the Assembly told me they would not take it under advisement,” he said. “I’m disappointed. I felt they at least would look at the merits of the issue.”

Asked why the bill would not be heard, Buckley said Wednesday: “I do not support legalizing prostitution.”

Buckley runs a disciplined caucus and her strong opposition to a bill guarantees its failure.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, made national headlines last month after the Sun reported he would be willing to grant a hearing on proposals to legalize and regulate prostitution in Las Vegas and Nevada’s other urban areas. (State law currently allows prostitution only in counties with fewer than 400,000 residents, meaning it’s banned in Clark and Washoe counties.)

The news coverage reignited a debate that has raged off and on for years. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has periodically called for a public discussion of legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas as a way to redevelop downtown.

Despite seeing some momentum in the Senate for the proposal, Flint said Buckley’s opposition means the issue is dead.

“There’s a sadness. It’s the only major industry in the state that doesn’t pay anything” in taxes to the state, he said. “I’ve seen legal and regulated, and illegal and unregulated. The first is better.”

He continued, “Forty-seven years in this business, you win some, you lose some. I’ve come to blame myself.”

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Nevada brothels want to pay tax, but state says no

(Steve Friess | New York Times) – It is virtually unheard of for any legal industry to ask to be taxed. And it would seem even more unlikely for any government, especially one facing down a nearly $2 billion budget gap, to hesitate when a business is willing to pay up.

Yet such is the case for Nevada’s brothels, a $50-million-a-year industry that pays significant amounts of tax to the rural counties in which they operate but only a $100 business license fee to the state.

The industry’s lobbyist, George Flint, director of the Nevada Brothel Association, has been approaching the Legislature’s leadership for months about creating an entertainment tax that would require the state’s 25 legal brothels to give the state some money on a per-transaction basis.

“I am a voice crying in the wilderness,” said Flint, who does not own any brothels himself. “It’s not going to make a hell of a lot of money, but we would be happy to pay our fair share. We can’t even get a hearing. The speaker of the House told me, ‘As bad as it is, I don’t think we want to go there.”‘

Nevada is the only state where prostitution is legal, but by state law it also is restricted to counties with fewer than 400,000 residents. That outlaws it in two counties, Clark, which contains Las Vegas, and Washoe, which contains Reno. There are about 225 women licensed by the state as prostitutes; no county allows brothels to have men who sell sexual services.

Still, since 1971, when prostitution was legalized, Nevada has added more than two million residents and become significantly more socially conservative. The state has also lost much of its frontier mentality, so Flint acknowledges that the tax effort is “something of an insurance policy” against the Legislature’s deciding one day to do away with the industry.

“Anytime you’re going to take tax money, the state’s not going to view you as a relic of a past time and put you out of business,” said Flint, who said he was gaining traction for a brothel tax in 2003 until he made the faux pas of joking to a reporter that he would commit to putting the governor’s portrait in every prostitute’s lair along with a note reading, “Don’t forget the governor’s share.”

Like most states, Nevada is facing economic problems. Governor Jim Gibbons, a Republican, submitted to the Legislature this month a budget that included 6 percent pay cuts for teachers and a 36 percent reduction in all higher-education financing to help close an expected $1.8 billion revenue gap created in part by dwindling tourism profits and a collapsing housing market.

Gibbons’s budget – which proposes the deep cuts to avoid any tax increases, in keeping with his 2006 no-tax-increases campaign pledge – was rejected out of hand by leaders of the State Senate and the House, both of which are dominated by Democrats. In Speaker Barbara Buckley’s response to the proposal and to Gibbons’s State of the State address on Jan. 15, she vowed to “gather all the facts, tap the best minds in the state, hear all points of view and commit ourselves to finding meaningful solutions.”

Still, Buckley said she did not support taxing brothels because she believed that to do so the state would have to legalize prostitution in the largest counties, “and I just don’t support the idea.” Asked why she supports prostitution in some areas of the state and not others, Buckley declined to answer except to say that legalization came “way before the time I was elected.”

Flint does have at least one legislative ally, Senator Bob Coffin, a Las Vegas Democrat and the incoming chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee. Coffin said he was willing to hold a hearing on the matter in the coming legislative session, which starts next month.

Coffin disputed the speaker’s assertion that a brothel tax would require statewide legalization and called it a “legal backdoor” to avoid the matter.

“There is a way to make it work, just as we make all these other legal contortions work based on population,” he said. “You can do it if the legal counsel says we can do it. And we should, because the brothels have been essentially exempted from the sharing of the burden that we all have to spread around on as many people as possible so the impact is less.”

Not all brothel owners support Flint’s efforts. Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Mound House, said his brothel was the “highest private taxpayer in Lyon County” and questioned why anyone would “consider another layer of tax on me. It’s unbearable in this economy.”

Hof, whose brothel is the subject of the long-running HBO reality show “Cathouse,” said he paid $78,000 a year for his county business license and $25,000 a year to the local health department officials. “The legislators are saying they’ve got bigger issues to deal with,” said Hof, who has long disassociated himself from Flint and the brothel association. “The state needs $1 billion. The money they would get from a brothel tax is a small amount of money. So why bring it up? If the Legislature thinks they need to get some more money from us, we’ll deal with it on our own.”

And even brothel owners who support the idea of being taxed by the state are not as worried as Flint is that the Legislature might ban the business. James Davis, owner of the Shady Lady Ranch in Scotty’s Junction, said legislators from the smaller counties would never allow the state to eliminate one of their few reliable sources of local tax revenue.

Buckley said she suspected that Flint’s motive was to first have the industry taxed by the state and then build a case for legalizing it in the larger counties. And Flint acknowledged that he hoped he could show the Legislature how much money the state is losing by not regulating and taxing the booming illegal prostitution industry in Las Vegas. (The closest legal brothels to the Strip are more than 60 miles, or 95 kilometers, away in Nye County.)

Flint has another outspoken ally, Mayor Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas, long an advocate of having legal brothels in the city. The mayor said that Nevada’s reputation is such that most travelers already believe that prostitution is legal throughout the state.

“They tell me we’re missing tens of million of dollars that could be used for the school system, to keep jail guards employed, to provide mental health services,” Goodman said.

“I also believe that by regulating and controlling this business, we could make it much safer for the customers as well as the prostitutes. We kid ourselves and we’re very disingenuous if we pretend that there isn’t rampant prostitution now that is unsafe for which we get no tax revenue.”

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Prostitution lobbyist faithful to cause

Ordained minister an unlikely mouthpiece for state’s legal brothels

By ED VOGEL
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

George Flint, owner of the Chapel of the Bells wedding chapel in Reno, estimates he’s performed more than 50,000 weddings since the 1960s. Besides performing weddings, Flint is the lobbyist for Nevada’s legal prostitution industry.Photo by Brad Horn/Special to the Review-Journal

When people of faith condemn prostitution, Nevada Brothel Owners Association Director George Flint waits for his chance to respond.”Other than his family, who was Jesus’ best friend?” Flint asks. “She was a young woman named Mary from a town on the Sea of Galilee called Magdala.”  For centuries, Mary Magdalene has been portrayed as a prostitute, although the Bible is silent on her profession.Then Flint mentions Rehab, described in the Old Testament as a harlot who protected Israelite spies and aided in their escape from Jericho.

It might seem surprising that the 69-year-old Flint, mouthpiece of Nevada’s legal prostitution industry for the past 20 years, is well-versed in the Bible.But his parents both were fundamentalist ministers in Wyoming, and he dutifully attended Eugene Bible College and became an Assemblies of God minister in Oregon.

Tired of being the always-broke father of four young children, Flint moved to Reno in 1962 to open the Chapel of the Bells wedding chapel.
Flint became politically active almost immediately. He began lobbying legislators on behalf of the wedding chapel industry. A banker friend who purchased the Kit Kat Ranch in Moundhouse, just east of Carson City, suggested he also lobby for brothels.Which is what he has done since 1985. Since then, Flint has shown up nearly every day during legislative sessions to serve as the industry-hired lobbyist for Nevada’s legal brothels.

“We live in a world where we have no choice whether we want prostitution,” Flint said earlier this month. “The only choice is how we want it, controlled or uncontrolled.” Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said she has known Flint since 1989. “He has never been anything but proper with me. He always has been respectful. … He is a lobbyist like anyone else.”

State law permits legal prostitution with County Commission approval in rural counties. Ten counties have licensed brothels, and Nevada has 26 legal brothels that employ about 300 prostitutes. No other state has legal prostitution. Though he is a familiar figure at the Legislature, Flint usually shuns publicity. He figures it best not to draw attention to a business many abhor. He seldom testifies before legislative committees. But Flint has still protected the industry.

When AIDS first became a public concern, brothel owners feared legislators might outlaw prostitution. With Flint’s leadership, the industry took the lead in self-regulation, requiring regular testing for HIV and condom use.”It’s become a normal special interest group like the bankers or gaming,” Flint said of prostitution. “I think part of the reason for its acceptance is the way I approach lobbying. I don’t haul girls into the building. It has been very gradual. I now have the same access to individual legislators as everyone else.”

This year Flint proposed the brothel industry pay the new 10 percent live entertainment tax, like strip clubs, bars and any other business that provides entertainment for patrons. By imposing a $20 to $40 charge on brothel admissions, Flint estimated, the industry would contribute $2 million a year to state coffers. Although hardly supporters of prostitution, Titus and Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, became unlikely Flint allies.At a time when legislators were debating whether Nevadans should be taxed for renting videos, Leslie figured brothels should start paying some state taxes.Only in the last days of the session did the brothel tax die. Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, feared a live entertainment tax would hurt neighborhood bars and restaurants. Leslie agreed and exempted from the tax facilities with fewer than 300 seats. Brothels fell under the exemption.

Leslie wants to try again at the 2005 Legislature to enact an industry-specific tax on prostitution. She salutes Flint for his willingness to accept a tax increase. In exchange, Flint wants the Legislature to repeal an old law that prevents advertising by brothels. Even if the Legislature does not lift the ban, Flint believes it soon will be successfully challenged in the courts. Titus, the primary legislator behind the tax on strip clubs, intends to support the brothel tax legislation. “I would certainly vote for it,” she said. “But the reason they want to be taxed is it legitimizes them even more. We have totally abandoned the family atmosphere in Nevada.”

Compared with the 300 legal prostitutes in all of Nevada, Flint estimates 10,000 illegal hookers work Las Vegas on most weekends. He also contends that 70 percent of the exotic dancers in high-end strip clubs sometimes turn tricks.”There are private boxes on the ceilings in some of these clubs that cost $500 to use,” he said. “What do you think happens there?”

Lt. Stan Olsen, the Metropolitan Police Department’s legislative lobbyist, said Flint’s 10,000 figure is greatly exaggerated. But he added police do not have a specific figure on the number of prostitutes in Las Vegas.

Not all brothel owners believe in Flint’s low-key approach. Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, is Flint’s protagonist. Hof refuses to join the brothel association and relishes publicity. He frequently appears with prostitutes on Howard Stern’s radio and television shows, and he occasionally is featured on HBO programs.

“I used to listen to everything George said until I found he was the front guy for Joe Conforte,” Hof said, referring to the former owner of the Mustang Ranch who now lives in exile. “Joe didn’t lay low, and George wanted everyone else to lay low. I woke up and said, `The hell with this.’ I stick my neck out. After 11 years there are few people who don’t know of me.”

Hof said the attention he has generated for his brothel, a mile east of Carson City, has resulted in greater acceptance of legal prostitution.
“We are dealing with the sanitation of a vice,” he said. “Instead of laying low like George Flint wants, we are doing it right, telling people about it, and they are responding to our message.”

Flint said that approach is just wrong. “I think Dennis suffers from the same disease as Joe Conforte,” he said. “They think you can normalize this business in everybody’s minds, make it as acceptable as selling McDonald’s hamburgers or Plymouth cars. But certain elements of society never will accept it. The whole delicate issue of sex for sale always will have some tender areas.”

Flint does not hide that he was a confidant to Conforte. Flint acknowledges that up until last year, he frequently spoke on the telephone with Conforte, who is living in Rio de Janeiro where he fled to avoid tax evasion charges.  Conforte threw caution to the wind during his years as Nevada’s most prominent brothel owner, and Flint recalls him giving out complimentary passes to legislators. Flint said some accepted them as quirky souvenirs, but three or four, whom he will not name, used the comps. Those days are over, he said.

In an ideal world, Flint said, sex would not be separated from love or marriage. But many men, according to Flint, are too homely, too timid, too handicapped or too disfigured to attract the affections of any woman, according to Flint.

“Other than the urge to survive, the urge for sex in a normal man is the strongest urge he has to deal with,” Flint said. “I have come to the conclusion that legal and regulated prostitution is better than the alternative since it eliminates pimps and eliminates crimes on the client and on the woman.”

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Nevada Brothel Owners Back Jail Terms For Infected Prostitutes With AM-AIDS Testing

(Brendan Riley | Associated Press) _ Prostitutes infected with AIDS who continued to solicit customers would face prison terms of up to 20 years under legislation which is supported by brothel owners and state health officials.

The target isn’t so much the state’s legal brothels, but prostitutes who work illegally in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and other resorts where the brothels aren’t allowed.

The bill, awaiting a floor vote in the state Assembly, originally would have made the offense punishable as attempted murder. In its latest form, it is regarded as having a good chance of passage.

Assembly Judiciary Chairman Bob Sader, whose committee unanimously endorsed the amended version, said the target is prostitutes who are ″trying to make a buck in a reckless manner.″

Jim Conkey, head of the AIDS education project at Truckee Meadows Community College, said the bill would be a legal tool for dealing with prostitutes who heedlessly infect others with the deadly virus.

However, Conkey criticized legislators for failing to deal with two of the most critical issues: the question of an AIDS carrier’s privacy rights and the prevention of discrimination.

State Health Administrator Larry Matheis, who endorses the legislation, said it would not change the manner in which Nevada’s 37 legal bordellos operate in outlying areas of the state.

″From a public health perspective, it’s exactly what’s going on now,″ he said, adding that prostitutes are tested for any sexually transmitted diseases before they can work in the houses and are tested every month while employed.

After a year of about 4,000 AIDS tests, ″there have been no women working as prostitutes in a brothel who have tested positive while working,″ said Matheis. ″If they did, by regulation they would be removed from employment.″

He said eight women who tested positive on their initial tests for exposure to the AIDS virus were refused employment.

The new legislation ″targets a group whose behavior presumably puts them at a higher risk,″ Matheis said. ″It requires them to get the screening and then imposes legal sanctions.″

Russell Reade, who quit a career as a biology teacher and sex-education coordinator in a Northern California high school to buy a Nevada bordello five years ago, is one of the strongest advocates of the bill.

Reade is co-owner of the Chicken Ranch near Pahrump and spokesman for the Nevada Brothel Association which represents more than half of the brothels in the state and three-fourths of the 400 or more legal prostitutes.

″We’re setting an example for the whole world,″ said Reade. ″Nevada has had the gumption to stand up and legalize prostitution and say that until you show us a better system, then leave us alone. And the wisdom of that is paying off.

″Every other state has prostitution but they have no control over them. And Nevada has control over it.″

Reade has required condoms at his Nye County brothel since 1985. County officials recently required the same protection in other houses, he said.

Matheis says Nevada’s per capita rate of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases ranks 32nd among all states. The state has had 84 confirmed cases, involving 82 men, mostly homosexual or bisexual, and two women who were intravenous drug users. Of the 84, 53 have died.

Bordellos have existed around Nevada since its mining camps boomed in the 19th century. They now are tolerated or allowed by local ordinance in 11 of the state’s 17 counties, all of them in outlying rural areas.

State law prohibits prostitution in Clark County, encompassing the Las Vegas Strip. And anti-brothel ordinances exist in the Reno-Carson City area and in Douglas County, which includes the Stateline casino area at Tahoe.