The Las Vegas strip sidewalks may be cleaner place now with the states attempt to clean up x-rated litter. There has been talks of a new ordinance that will require “card-slappers” (you know those annoying people who hand out cards advertising strip clubs) to pick up litter within a 25-foot (7.5-meter) radius on the sidewalk. Of course there’s a catch. Click below.
But some tourists accept the pamphlets and glossy cards that advertise all-but-nude exotic dancers. Then, more often than not, they toss the material in the trash. Or if a trash can isn’t nearby, onto the sidewalk — creating an endless X-rated litter problem that Las Vegas officials are now trying to clean up.
A new ordinance requires handbillers to pick up litter within a 25-foot (7.5-meter) radius on the sidewalk. But there’s a hitch: The law might run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech.
“If someone takes some material, regardless of what it is, and then walks down the street and decides to drop it, that’s the person who is littering. That’s the person that is responsible, not the person who gave it to them originally,” said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union.
Las Vegas police aren’t enforcing the ordinance yet. The ACLU has been meeting regularly with the exotic dancer businesses and police to talk about how that will happen, as well as encourage handbillers to help keep the Strip clean. The group has not yet challenged the law in court.
Meanwhile, handbillers — they’re also called “card-slappers” for the noise they make to get people’s attention — are as in-your-face as ever.
“They’re totally annoying,” John Marquez, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, said on a recent evening. “I pretty much take them and toss them in the first garbage can I see.”
One card he’d just grabbed near the Monte Carlo advertised a nearly nude woman named “Giesele” and a “$35 Special” but offered no other details on what the deal involved.
The legions of handbillers on the Strip on any given day include about 25 who work the Strip for Hillsboro Entertainment. They hand out some 50,000 handbills a week, according to the company’s owner, Vincent Bartello.
