Banning newsracks

In an effort to improve pedestrian flow on sidewalks along the Las Vegas Strip, Clark County Manager Don Burnette recommends moving about 33 fire hydrants, removing or relocating all trash cans and possibly relocating traffic signal equipment and signs that slow foot traffic along walkways.

Leaving aside the obvious litter problems likely to be caused by a lack of trash cans, this all makes sense.

But Mr. Burnette also wants to banish the hundreds of newsracks that carry colorful tabloid publications offering the unspecified services of scantily clad young women, “direct to your room.”

The idea has support among some commissioners, but it also sets the stage for a legal battle with the industry that promotes strip clubs and escort services. Eddie Munoz, owner of Strip Advertising, has about 450 newsracks along the Strip — and he pays tens of thousands of dollars in annual fees for that privilege. “We’ll be fighting this in federal court,” he says. “This is just an attempt to put us out of business.”

Commissioner Steve Sisolak acknowledged a court challenge is possible, but he doesn’t consider the proposal an infringement of free speech.

“It’s not a First Amendment issue,” he explained, because the ordinance would ban newsracks not based on the content of their publications, but universally. That’s a bit like saying you’re not attempting to ban conservative talk radio, only that you’re banning all talk radio. Because liberal talk radio has joined the Dodo bird in oblivion, it would be hard to disguise the de facto selective impact of such a move.

Strip newsracks tend to service one tourist-oriented industry — no matter how unsavory to many — and it’s hard to imagine a court embracing the argument that the county banned Strip newsracks for The Wall Street Journal as well (there aren’t any, so far as we know), let alone that plenty of alternative newsrack space is still available out near Tule Springs. In fact, the most likely result of such a newsrack ban — for however long it might survive — would simply be to inundate tourists with larger crowds of aggressive handbillers.

The proposed ordinance could be introduced as early as the commission’s March 19 meeting.

Better pedestrian traffic flow is a fine goal. But unless some accommodation — including alternative methods of delivery — can be reached with the newsrack owners, this has all the ingredients of another pointless waste of taxpayer resources, flushed away fighting yet another unwinnable federal court action.