Q:
We always stay either on the Strip or at a locals casino, but have never stayed downtown. However, we always spend an evening or two downtown to see the Fremont Street Experience, the Mob Museum, etc., and gamble for a while. Last year some of the so-called street performers were so filthy in their dress, mannerisms, language, and more that we have decided to write off downtown unless this scum is either banned or forced to clean up their act. We spoke to a police officer about one particularly disgusting guy and were told that at that time they were protected by some ridiculous and obviously outdated law that had not yet been repealed. Are they still there or has Fremont Street been cleaned up in the last year or so?
A:
It seems the police officer had it a bit backwards.
The street performers aren’t "protected by some ridiculous and obviously outdated law that had not yet been repealed." Rather, they’re protected by no less than the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the abridging of the freedom of speech, among other freedoms (religion, the press, peaceful assembly, and redress of grievances).
Amendments to the Constitution can be repealed, but only if a new amendment overturns the old one, as happened with the Twenty-first Amendment, which superseded the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).
That said, the City of Las Vegas has been trying to "clean up" Fremont Street for years. The latest policy went into effect in November 2015. As we covered more fully in the QoD on January 20, 2016, it confines performers, panhandlers, buskers, and other tip-seekers to six-foot-diameter "performance zones" painted to look like oversize poker chips. A 40-foot buffer separates one busker from another; there’s also a 100-foot separation from Fremont Street concerts. "Performers" enter a daily lottery for the privilege of two-hour intervals in the zones. Thus, buskers can’t congregate in crowded areas, nor can they hound passersby.
You can cut a wide swath around them. Or, as you say, you can avoid downtown altogether. But the street people aren’t going away anytime soon.
Update 13 October 2016
"Just a friendly FYI to say I really enjoy the street performers downtown -- and the weirder the better. Vegas has lost its overall feel of "anything goes in Sin City," what with the corporate über-emphasis now on high-end nightclubs and endless retail. At least downtown you can still see some free spirits and be surprised -- even sometimes delighted. It's INTERESTING downtown."
We think this is a legitimate, even compelling, perspective, but if our feedback today is any indication, most people don't agree.
"Couldn't the city allocate Fremont St. under the light show to the casinos by creating private property? Each casino/property would have Fremont St. out to the center of the street."
"The right to free speech is in play because Fremont is public property, right? So why don't the casinos under the canopy buy what used to the actual usable street before it became pedestrian only? Then it would be private property and they can control who 'performs there (take THAT you fake Elvis who grabbed me when I walked by!)."
"In your buskers answer today you might want to mention that no matter what laws or ordinances are passed by the city to limit these street performers, the ACLU fights until that limiting law is repealed. That has happened three times that I know of and maybe more."
That last statement is the crux of the matter. Starting in the late 1990s (after the street was closed for FSE) and continuing up until the 2010s, the City of Las Vegas and the Fremont Street Experience have tried to privatize Fremont Street as a "mall," but have had every attempt overturned and have lost every appeal. As we wrote in this answer above, the street "performers" are, for all intents and purposes, here to stay.
And then there's the consumer perspective on the hassles of Fremont Street.
"There is a visitor/local-resident financial plus side to all this downtown negative with buskers on the mall. Lower prices for rooms and food and better gambling payback/rates will have to to be available to keep paying customer coming downtown. So much for the attempt (by a few of the new downtown casino owners) to raise prices to Strip levels. The customer and the market rule, especially in Las Vegas!!!!
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