§ 6.140.010. Findings.

The Clark County liquor and gaming licensing board and the board of county commissioners of Clark County find that:

For several years preceding 1986, escort bureaus had been operating as modified brothels in Clark County, engaging in the business of sending "escorts" to hotel and motel rooms for the purposes of prostitution. Disciplinary action was brought against each of the escort services resulting in a surrender or revocation of their business license. The escort business, then instituted a new business method, by obtaining promoter's licenses and offering in response to a telephone call, what they purported to be "entertainment." Police undercover activities have established that these promoters are actually operating as modified brothels, sending individuals to hotel and motel guestrooms for the purpose of prostitution under the subterfuge of "entertainment." The cover of the First Amendment has materially increased the burden of policing this business to decrease the incidence of prostitution and drug sales.

The purpose of the ordinance codified in this chapter is to regulate the outcall entertainment business to the end that many types of criminal activities will be curtailed, without de facto prohibiting or curtailing protected expression. This chapter represents a balancing of the legitimate ends of the community by imposing an incidental, content neutral place, time and manner regulation on the outcall promoter business, without limiting alternative avenues of communication, and at the same time, requiring the business to carry its share of financing law enforcement activities.

Note: The use of the words "entertainment" or "entertainer" does not mean or imply that the conduct offered by outcall promoters or the conduct in which persons referred by said promoters engage is the type or form of entertainment which involves expression protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or that there has been a finding by the board of county commissioners that such entertainment is provided. The term "entertainment" is used because it is by that term the promoters refer to themselves in advertisement and it is convenient to use so as to distinguish, for indexing purposes, between the businesses defined herein, and other businesses which legitimately deliver goods or services off their business premises.

(Ord. 1340 § 1, 1991: Ord. 1069 § 1 (part), 1988: Ord. 1056 § 1 (part), 1987)