Question of the Day - 16 June 2018

It’s against the law.

Specifically, Nevada Revised Statute 463.0129: “All establishments where gaming is conducted and where gaming devices are operated, and manufacturers, sellers and distributors of certain gaming devices and equipment, and operators of inter-casino linked systems must therefore be licensed, controlled and assisted to protect the public health, safety, morals, good order and general welfare of the inhabitants of the State, to foster the stability and success of gaming and to preserve the competitive economy and policies of free competition of the State of Nevada.” (emphasis added)

Caesars Palace experimented with a bar in which women performed topless routines behind a backlit curtain, but that was abandoned. If you want titillation on the Las Vegas Strip, the closest you’ll come is Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity, which — the last time we checked — featured topless swimmers. (Cirque shows are in a continuous state of flux.) Other topless shows include Fantasy at Luxor, X Burlesque, X Country and X Rocks at Flamingo, Harrah’s and Bally’s respectively, as well as Westgate Las Vegas’ Sexxy. As for operating a club, even were toplessness explicitly allowed, a casino would have to comply with a litany of regulations almost literally as long as your arm.

Regulation 3 of the Nevada state regulations, without explicitly barring topless establishments, creates a penumbra under which they would be difficult to operate. Gambling is explicitly barred, for instance, in brothels and in “premises difficult to police,” not to mention “premises lacking adequate supervision or surveillance.” However, the same gaming regulation states, “No license will be issued for use in any establishment until satisfactory evidence is presented that there is adequate financing available to pay all current obligations and, in addition, to provide adequate working capital to finance opening of the establishment” and some casinos — most notoriously the New Aladdin — were opened without “adequate working capital.” In that case, the co-owners were at each others’ throats when they went before the Nevada Gaming Control Board for approval.

But we digress. Strippers would have to register as gaming employees under Regulation 5.320, “because such registration is necessary to promote the public policy set forth in Nevada."

Given the number of Las Vegas strip clubs that have had run-ins with the law, this could make background checks a little dicey. Casino executives would probably have to operate the jiggle joints themselves, as independent hosts or promoters would have to supply the Control Board with a “list of all felony, drug-related, or prostitution related arrests and convictions.” And in the unlikely event that a club operator could get licensed, he'd bump right up against that statute containing the morals clause. It doesn't come right out and say, “No naked nipples,” but it certainly leaves a heavy implication, like cheap perfume, hanging in the air.

Meanwhile, there's an additional applicable statute in Clark County, which has jurisdiction over the Strip. According to county spokesman Dan Kulin, “Strip clubs are only allowed on property zoned for industrial uses that is within the adult-use overlay district. The resorts on Las Vegas Boulevard are on property zoned for resort hotels, not industrial uses, so they're outside the overlay district.”

So that, as they say, is that.