Steve Friess for Sphere
The stripper-mobile.
Yes, there is such a thing. Or there was, anyhow. The marketing manager of a pair of Las Vegas strip joints hit on the clever idea of driving a truck up and down The Strip with pole dancers grinding inside a Plexiglas box to promote the Little Darlings and Déjà Vu Showgirls gentleman's club.
The result: Business doubled. Also, a political firestorm erupted that now has the Clark County Commission contemplating amending its regulations on what's permissible for mobile billboards.
"It was incredible. I wish I had it out there every day," Larry Beard said. He conjured up the Stripper-mobile to go a step beyond the ubiquitous static-image mobile billboards that troll the world's most famous resort corridor. "Guys would actually follow us in limos, taxis and cars to the clubs. It was excellent for business plus the international publicity of the thing," he said.
Beard began circulating the Stripper-mobile around Halloween. Two or three dancers performed in a box that is 12 feet long by 7 feet tall by 8 feet wide. The women didn't strip, but they wore revealing clothes and sometimes twirled upside down. Beard said the vehicle ran only from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., when a curfew for minors is in effect on the Strip.
County commissioners received complaints from parents nonetheless; so on Nov. 13, the vehicle was parked. The clubs' attorney, Jay Brown, told the commission the company wanted to be "good citizens." However, Beard said he's in negotiations with another gentleman's club in Vegas to buy out his lease on the vehicle and get it up and running again in December.
Beard maintains he did nothing wrong and that the idea was being attacked because of its content, a violation of his First Amendment rights. He said he had checked with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department before the Stripper-mobile launched to ensure he wasn't violating any laws, but he said he shut it down anyway out of fear of reprisals from the County Commission on other fronts in a business that relies on a variety of privileged licenses they grant.
"We can't really be fighting with them because they have control over so many things," he said. "It would be like you have to live with your mom and your mom's pissed off with ya and your mom does all the cooking."
"You could have 10 of them out there pretty quick and a million people just staring," he said. "We have to get a handle on it before it gets too out of hand."
Sisolak's argument, that the women in the box could cause traffic jams by averting the attention of motorists, amused ACLU of Nevada attorney Allen Lichtenstein, who had advised Beard on the legality during the Stripper-mobile's run.
"It's a distraction from what? Looking at the volcano that erupts every hour outside the Mirage? The dancing waters in front of Bellagio? The pirate show? All the huge signs, including the animation on the signs?" Lichtenstein said. "The strip is designed to be distracting, and the County Commission has approved all of it."
Other commissioners questioned whether allowing the women to be unrestrained in the box was a violation of the state's seat-belt laws. Beard said the box portion was categorized as a "vehicle for hire" and therefore exempt the same way passengers in a limo or taxi don't have to wear seat belts in Nevada.
Marla Letizia, owner of the region's largest mobile billboard company, told commissioners that she found the idea of strippers in a moving box "disgusting." She also said in an interview that it taints her and other legitimate operators who carefully follow the law.
"I have clients like Cirque du Soleil, MGM Mirage and AEG Live asking us to run mobile billboards with video animation on them and of course we would love to comply for our clients," Letizia said. "But it's illegal. That's good enough for me; I don't do it."
Yet Beard and Lichtenstein argued that the law refers to animated characters, not real ones, and that "there's a difference between Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop," Lichtenstein said.
For now, the Stripper-mobile sits in the parking lot at Déjà Vu, a skeleton dangling from one of the poles as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the county commissioners. Yet Lichtenstein is keeping careful tabs on the county's next step, anticipating that the ACLU may need to get involved if the law is changed to try to ban this form of advertising.
The ACLU and the county, in fact, have a lengthy record of legal battles, virtually all of which the ACLU has won. County officials have tried in vain over the years to ban hand billers who line the Strip's sidewalks, foisting sexually suggestive placards advertising strippers and escorts to passers-by. Federal courts, including in a case as recent as 2007, struck down those laws as First Amendment violations.
"Whenever you talk about free speech, it automatically becomes a serious question even if the speech itself is not of the greatest import," Lichtenstein said. "If they can stop one kind of speech, they can stop other kinds of speech. I never take any situation where free speech rights may be in jeopardy is frivolous."
