KNPR-FM’s "State of Nevada" program recently described some Fremont Street Experience denizens as being clad only in jockstraps or with pasties covering otherwise bare bosoms, or what Councilman Bob Coffin characterized as "people showing all their property." He said that the FSE has a curfew but that "much of the exhibitionism occurs during a time that youths – I’m talking about kids about the height of your waist – are on the street with their parents … It’s one of those things where we’re a bit hamstrung. A guy in a jock strap with a bare ass hanging out at the height of the eyeballs of a five- or six- or eight-year old, that’s inappropriate. That has never been part of this town’s culture – ever … It’s not about beauty down there. It’s not about the free expression of the human body being an artistic object. It’s about how ugly you can make your body." A civil-liberties attorney rejoined that FSE was "full of drunken tourists" and perhaps not the best place to take one’s kids.
The City of Las Vegas is drafting an ordinance to try and regulate the sort of conduct Coffin describes. City Attorney Brad Jerbic says that, instead of trying to tell buskers where they can’t be, Las Vegas will take a page from Santa Monica’s book and tell them where they can be. Coffin adds that men in jockstraps and women in pasties are permissible in public places, although he thinks it should be restricted on Fremont Street to such hours as "people can walk through without getting grossed out." Pole dancers in casinos, on private property, he said, are "not as exposed and intentionally gross as the folks that are trying to get some money" -- a pursuit with which he fully sympathizes, but not in the context of an "anything-goes" scenario.
Unfortunately for Coffin and others who are uncomfortable with some of the attire (or lack of same) seen on Fremont Street, the city ordinance dealing with street performers devotes a great deal of space to where they can and cannot perform, but not what they wear. (For instance, "Such street performers may not place objects on the ground unless the objects are placed within a two foot radius of the performer; do not obstruct or impede pedestrian traffic or cause a potential risk to passersby; and are integral to the performance [e.g., a hat or container to accept donations]. However, the prohibition contained in the preceding sentence does not apply to incidental personal items such as purses or coats, or to backpacks whose capacity does not exceed two cubic feet.") City spokeswoman Margaret Kurtz allows that "There may be provisions of state law that address attire or lack of attire more generally in public places," but she has no specific knowledge of such statutes.
