Can Clark County ban people from stopping on the pedestrian bridges that connect Las Vegas Strip resorts?

The ACLU of Nevada says no.

Plus... A new documentary explores black history in America and the unique role Las Vegas played in it.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

The pedestrian bridges over the Las Vegas Strip provide fantastic views to millions of tourists every year.

But now, stopping on those bridges to take in the sights is banned.

Clark County says it's for public safety, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada says it's unconstitutional.

Here to talk about its lawsuit against the ban and other measures the human rights organization is fighting is Athar Haseebullah, Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada.

Athar, welcome to Nevada Week.

(Athar Haseebullah) Thank you.

-So Clark County's ordinance making it illegal to stop on those pedestrian bridges on the Strip, what do you think is unconstitutional about it?

-The entire ordinance is unconstitutional.

You know, we've mentioned this previously when we commented in opposition to the bills as they were proposed.

Effectively, what their proposal does, which is now law in Clark County, is it criminalizes innocuous behavior.

We view it as being unconstitutionally vague, not providing enough clarity with respect to what conduct is prohibited and what will be enforced under the statute.

We think it's a violation of the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

We also have submitted to the court that it's a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Under this proposal, anyone who stops, even for a couple of seconds to do something like adjust a manual wheelchair, would be guilty of a new crime that's been created and manufactured by the county at the behest of specific interest groups.

-Let's make it known that there are some exceptions.

If you are on the bridge and you are taking a selfie or a photo, the County says that they are not going to cite someone for that.

The County also put it in the ordinance that if you are waiting for an elevator or an escalator, you will not be in violation either.

Why is that not enough for you?

-Well, there's two elements there.

So again, I would have loved to have someone, as I've said before, from the county to be able to have this dialogue live, whether council or any other government entity, but they never want to get on when we're on.

I'll break it down.

There are two points.

There's actually one exception that's within the ordinance itself, which provides for a window, a curtilage area, next to the elevators.

The portion with respect to the ability to take photographs actually came by way of a subsequent statement that the County issued that said they won't enforce it against selfie takers.

It's not actually contained within the language of the ordinance.

Due process requires under law that the actual ordinance and the provisions that are being enforced against would be clearly explicated so there's not a risk of disparate enforcement.

-Your're saying it needs to be written in there, you can take a selfie?

-If they were creating an exception for it, but nobody's clear as to what they're actually creating an exception for.

We've seen statements from Metro and seen statements from the County that state after this ordinance was passed that they won't enforce this against selfie takers.

We don't know that to actually be the case, because otherwise they would have included it within the actual law that they passed.

That's generally how these laws work is that if there's exceptions, they clearly outline them.

And it provides notice to anybody who's coming in of what the law entails.

-Which they did include that for the elevator and the escalator access.

You did bring up you wish someone from the county was here to defend themselves.

The County says it does not comment on pending litigation.

But I'm going to do my best to express their point of view, which is that this is a public safety issue.

So at the meeting where this was unanimously passed, the Director of UNLV Center for Crime and Justice Policy said, "Disorder has been increasing on the Strip.

Calls for disorderly offenses like fights and public intoxication are up 25% from 2018 to 2022."

He also said disorder concentrates disproportionately on those pedestrian bridges.

And then in this excerpt that you are about to hear, he elaborates on the impacts that disorder can have.

Let's take a listen.

(William H. Sousa) Research indicates that increased levels of disorder can impact people's perceptions of personal safety and fear of victimization.

Disorder can also generate conditions that are favorable for more disorder and potentially for serious crime, more serious crime and violence.

But disorder is especially problematic within the context of a pedestrian bridge, because it often encourages people to stop walking.

Regardless of whether people who are stopped or engaged in inappropriate conduct, the relatively limited space on a longer bridge generates a higher chance for obstructions and increased crowd density.

Obstructions in crowd density are significant public safety concerns on the bridges.

The bridges are a confined environment with traffic flow normally two directions.

Should an incident occur that triggers rapid group movement in one of those directions, a bottleneck could quickly develop that could lead to serious injuries as the result of crowd crush.

-Undersheriff Andy Walsh of Metro went on to say that crowd crush has been a concern of Metro for some time.

He used the quote that, The old saying is "Where it's predictable, it's preventable" is staring us right in the face.

How would you respond to that?

First, the Constitution doesn't allow for these generalized statements to justify such a restrictive measure, right?

If we're doing something that's restricting First Amendment protections which are at the core of our Constitution, one of the strongest protections we have, there needs to be more than a generalized assertion as Dr. Seuss had made and that the County relied on in the generation of this specific statute.

Constitutionally, it's deficient to say disorder may increase with higher concentrations of people, so we have to criminalize stopping for two seconds on a bridge.

It makes no sense.

We don't view it as being constitutionally justifiable.

And even the data that was suggested, they mentioned that there's increased concerns with respect to hyperconcentration of people on these bridges, yet they've managed to cite a grand total of no incidents with respect to crowd crush that have actually occurred.

They've also at the same time and concurrently stated that the conditions on these bridges are so unsafe, that stopping for two seconds or three seconds or however many seconds they believe this statute would entail and require in order for them to enforce it, that that statute is necessary to prevent against potential crime.

But at the same time, well within their authority right now is the ability to have a police presence up there.

And they don't do that, because there isn't sufficient crime up there to justify that activity.

This is a request that's been put up by special interest groups and people who have seen the videos, whether it's an individual who doesn't-- is not viewed favorably by a resort property that wants that person off the bridge.

-Perhaps a performer?

-Maybe a performer or maybe it's somebody who is taking a picture of Formula 1, like we saw in a viral video a couple months ago.

And to us, it's no coincidence that this measure comes immediately after that video goes viral, where an individual is on a publicly funded pedestrian bridge that taxpayers pay for, they snap a photo of the event, and the next thing you know, they're being accosted by security.

Now, the only difference under this statute is taxpayers get to pay for the accosting of an individual person taking a photograph of the race.

Despite the fact that they pay for the bridge, this is really an ordinance that's been used or would be used to selectively enforce and target people that the powers that be don't want on the Strip.

-Metro says that they will first be warning people, asking them to continue to move.

If they refuse, that is when they would give a citation or make an arrest.

Let's move on to the City of Las Vegas' "order out corridor" ordinance, which means that if you commit a misdemeanor in this specific corridor, which we have some maps of the areas that are included, a judge can say, Hey, you are not allowed to return to that area for up to a year.

That area that we're talking about includes the Fremont Street Experience and The Stratosphere.

You are opposed to it, but you have not yet challenged it.

Why is that?

-There's a couple of reasons.

I will say that you're a great spokesperson playing this role for the county, because they also didn't include-- -Now we're on to the City.

- --they didn't include the warning provision in their statute.

But with respect to the city's ordinance, this is really a copycat ordinance of what Clark County recently did.

The County passed a similar order-out provision on the Strip.

And what it would allow for is that anyone who is charged with any level of crime, whether that's a felony or a misdemeanor, a low-level item, low-level crime, they could be banned or barred from that area, from the Strip, for up to a year period.

And the city's-- -And in lieu of a jail sentence.

-In lieu of a jail sentence.

But you know, here's the thing: Restricting freedom of movement, this goes for the city as well, does cut at the heart of the First Amendment.

They provide a couple exceptions within their overall ordinance, but at the end of the day-- -Including if you work there, you can go to work there; if you need public transportation there; also if you're seeking federal, state, and social services.

-Yeah.

Here's one of the challenges that we'll bring up, right, specifically with respect to the city of Las Vegas.

The Corridor of Hope lies in this area.

The unhoused population in Southern Nevada has been concentrated largely near that Corridor of Hope because all social services exist over there.

In fact, nearly every behavior in Nevada or close to every behavior has some level of a criminalization ordinance that could be associated with it.

So let's use the example of an individual who has a shopping cart, right?

That is unlawful in the state of Nevada.

It's a misdemeanor to possess a shopping cart.

We know unhoused folks have shopping carts.

So by virtue of there being a shopping cart there, effectively what the City would want to do is cite the person and then ban them from this area for up to a year.

Now, what's to stop them from continuing to expand this out further?

What's the basis for excluding people from Downtown or from the Strip, outside of it's what we want tourists to have.

Tourists aren't the ones footing the bill for these areas.

These are our public forums, and Nevada taxpayers are going to be funding the cost of maintenance for these areas.

It's not everyone else that's doing it.

It's people here.

-Okay.

So it was Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman who sponsored this bill.

Her office says that she could not be here for this today.

But at one of those meetings, she did say it was Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill who recommended, Hey, you should implement this downtown because it's working well for Clark County, which you are currently fighting their order out corridor ordinance.

I think that's why you're waiting to-- for action against Las Vegas.

-Bring it back to your question about the timing for this.

That ordinance--which is actually before the Nevada Supreme Court, the county's ordinance is currently before the Nevada Supreme Court pending decision--we submitted an amicus brief on arguing that this is a bad idea and it's unconstitutional.

We're waiting with respect to that specific ordinance for the court to decide there so we can assess what we're going to do with the city's ordinance.

If the court comes back with clear guidance, one way or another, I think it'll end up potentially modifying some of the ways that the city's ordinance has been approached.

But it's already being touched upon before the court.

And look, we're an organization that also values public safety and public health.

Our solutions for dealing with these items are not to simply criminalize everything.

And we don't think that jails are a substitute for shelters.

-I'm gonna move on to our last topic.

And I'm also wondering if we can skip forward to the next set of sound bites because we are running out of time.

This is about the City of Sparks.

And they have clarified, because there was some confusion, that sleeping in a car is a criminal misdemeanor.

Their reasoning for this is that it is another public safety issue, a public health issue.

They are talking about this being meant for homeless people who continue to refuse social services.

Let's take a listen to those sound bites if we can.

(Mariah Northington) This is hopefully a tool of last resort for individuals who are continuing to refuse resources and services, which are coming at the detriment of the public.

We're having serious public health, public safety, and public order concerns with a specific group of people who are refusing services.

For example, there are approximately 20 to 25 vacancies at the Care shelter every night that are not being utilized.

And in the last year, there was approximately 120 warming fires from homeless individuals that went out of control and required the city's resources to get them back under control.

(Chris Crawforth) A big part that we're seeing is recreational vehicles, old recreational vehicles parked throughout our city that people are habitating in that they refuse to change and get services after 13, 14 contacts.

Humans are humans, so there are things that need to occur, meaning like our day-to-day uses of facilities.

Those facilities are falling onto our streets, meaning the black water and gray water from these RVs are draining directly onto our streets, which if you look at it drains directly into the river.

There is no stop.

There is no treatment center.

They go directly into those.

(Wes Duncan) We're not talking about the one-time person that might be sleeping in their car, we're talking about the folks who have a resistance to services.

But that is now impacting public health and public safety.

So it's not criminalizing the homelessness, it's criminalizing the impact that is causing public health and public safety problems.

-So on that last point, City Attorney Wes Duncan, he wanted to be here, or he wanted to at least participate virtually, but he is an Air Force reservist and is on reserve duty all of this week.

But that last point that he made, the ordinance specifically says you can be in your car up to 48 hours.

After that point, you got to move a little more than two miles.

And I guess you could repeat the process.

But that goes to their point that this is not for the one-time sleeping your car person this is for people who refuse to leave and who are leaving a mess around the city, which there are some pictures we can show from that council meeting.

Your response to all of this.

-First, I appreciate Wes Duncan for at least potentially agreeing to come on here since nobody else will if I'm on, but it's an-- for us, it's an easy response there.

If this is about individuals who are refusing services, why didn't they include language about individuals who are refusing services within their statute?

It's the same thing that's happened in other areas.

They'll mention they're going to give a warning.

That's not in the statute.

They'll mention this is about repeat individuals who have been resistant to services 14 or 15 times, from the clip.

They didn't carve that and put that into the statute.

Instead, they have this 48-hour rule.

And in fact, what they are doing, as I mentioned, is attempting to replace shelters or housing through jails.

That's not the way the public should deal with it.

Part of the challenge is the public isn't aware of the cost of prosecution, and they're not aware of the cost of jailing individuals.

It's this abstract thought that we have, because we hear about people being prosecuted.

We hear about people being incarcerated.

We don't know what it costs us.

But we hear numbers with respect to what housing costs, an actual physical cost associated with it.

If any of these DA's offices or City Attorneys came forward with the actual cost of prosecuting and incarcerating these individuals, I think the public would be very disappointed to know this is how their dollars are being spent.

-Last thing.

To the City of Sparks' point, they say they will not be making any arrests if there are no beds available at the local homeless shelter, which how would you respond to that?

-They don't have a choice.

That's federal law under Boise versus Martin.

It's not as if they came up with that solution.

This is federal law.

In effect, what they're saying is they're not going to skirt federal law, which we're glad to see.

This particular issue is before the US Supreme Court, in part.

So we're waiting on this a little bit to see what happens there.

-Thank you for coming in.

And we hope to have you back on.

-Thanks, Amber.

-We move now to a new documentary highlighting the Historic Westside of Las Vegas.

Across the Tracks-A Las Vegas Westside Story explores how the once racially segregated area of the city made for a unique setting during the Civil Rights Movement.

Its director, Emmett Gates, joins us now.

Welcome to Nevada Week.

(Emmett Gates) Thank you.

-So when did you start working on this, and what inspired it?

-Well, I grew up in Las Vegas.

We started working on this about a year ago.

And you know, I approached the Las Vegas Centennial Commission.

I said I got this idea.

Has anyone ever done an in-depth look at the history of black Las Vegas?

And it turns out while some people have made attempts, no one really went deep.

So I decided that's what we would do.

-What surprised you during this process?

Having grown up in Las Vegas, what did you not know that you found out?

-Oh, so much.

-Yeah.

-So much.

In fact, one of the things that we want as a team for this film is for every single person that watches it no longer-- or no matter how long they've been in Vegas, we want every person to walk away saying, I did not know that.

At least something.

So there was so much.

-But specifically, maybe just one big thing.

-I didn't know that Josephine Baker had such an impact.

-Tell me about her.

-Josephine Baker, you know, a performer, but much more than that.

She moves to France because of the racism and the Jim Crow things she had to deal with here.

And she gets there, and she's embraced by the people for her talent.

And then when the Nazis come into France, she continues her fight for human rights by helping the French Resistance, hiding out Jewish refugees in her mansion, you know, getting weapons to the French Resistance because she knew, just from her experiences in America, what that was.

And she comes back to America, a lot of people don't know this, she spoke on the same stage as Martin Luther King in 1963 at the March on Washington.

She, you know, she comes back here, and she comes to Vegas, specifically, and makes sure that her show, when she's performing, is not going to be segregated.

Because at that time, Vegas was segregated.

And she fought to make sure that whoever wanted to see her show could see it.

Her immediate move was to hail a taxi to Jackson Avenue on the west side.

The first mission was to visit each and every beauty salon and barber shop where she personally handed out tickets to the show.

The second mission was to contact local NAACP President Woodrow Wilson.

No, not that one.

This Woodrow Wilson.

The backing of the NAACP would guarantee a national spotlight on the discriminatory practices in Las Vegas if her contract wasn't honored.

Josephine was playing chess.

And that night when her guests were denied entry at the door... -So she hears what's happening and apparently sits down on the stage when she's supposed to be performing and says in the microphone that she will not perform until her demands are met.

-And how did you describe her in the documentary, because you are narrating this.

-Yeah.

-I believe it was Beyonce and-- -Yeah.

When she got to France, she was all of those things.

She was Taylor Swift.

She was Beyonce.

She was that person in France at that time.

And instead of letting it go to her head, she remembered where she came from and who she was and what being human meant.

And so I think-- I'm hoping that young people watching this will aspire to learn more about her.

-Yeah.

Let's see some T-shirts with Josephine Baker on them.

So Across the Tracks - A Las Vegas Westside Story, let's break down that title.

The first part, "Across the Tracks," for that we have a clip from the documentary.

Let's watch that.

-Ernie Cragin was a longtime Las Vegan who had worked for the railroad.

And in 1931, he was elected mayor.

If you were black and you owned a business on the east side of the railroad tracks, you don't get your license renewed unless you move.

-This was an attempt to force black people to settle in the areas that were already divested from.

-Banks are not going to lend you money to buy a house east of the tracks.

And Cragin helps drive the effort to make segregation official in Las Vegas.

-Did you know that going into this film?

-I did not.

-No.

-No, not those particulars.

Yeah.

-I mean, because there's different ways that segregation was enacted across the country, and that's Las Vegas' story.

But you did grow up here, and I asked you off-camera ahead of this, At what point did you learn about segregation, because you even lived on the west side at one time.

-I did.

And, of course, by the time-- I'm not gonna tell you my age, but as an infant in the 1970s when my mother came here to take advantage of the new opportunities for black people to work in the gaming industry, we grew up not knowing any of this, you know?

This was our world.

So when we would watch these black and white videos of, you know, just 10 years before, it was like ancient history as far as we were concerned.

But yeah.

These particular details, I got some of the best historians in Las Vegas.

Talking to them and learning this stuff, you know, Mike Green, Bob Stoldal, Claytee White, Tyler Perry, Dr. Tyler Perry from UNLV.

And yeah, they really kind of filled this all in for us.

-You did say your mother first, was the first one to inform you about this.

Do you remember how it made you feel as a child?

-Well, you know, she never, she never told me with anger.

She was just like, This is the way things were, you know, because by the time I enter elementary school in the late '70s, early '80s, she's coming from a different time.

So she's a little afraid of what, you know, what's going to happen when schools were integrated.

But, you know, me and my friends, we were kids.

We grew up.

We had fun.

And color, we didn't see color.

We didn't understand it, you know?

So, you know, when she started to tell me about these things, I was just like, that's weird.

That's crazy.

-It is weird.

-Yeah.

-So the second part of the title, "A Las Vegas Westside Story," any inspiration from the musical, the West Side Story?

-Of course.

Definitely a play on words.

I think it's important to note that in the early part of Las Vegas' history, there was none of that.

Blacks, whites, Latinos, everyone lived together in what is now the downtown area, and they would, you know, they had businesses, blacks owned businesses in what is now the downtown area.

It was only when we see Mayor Cragin come in.

And not just him, a lot of Southerners that were moving to the area.

Specifically, once the Hoover Dam is completed, you know, we move up to the, the ending of prohibition, the legalization of gambling.

You know, a lot of the money came from Southern oil money.

They were coming, and they brought a lot of their prejudices with them.

And Cragin, he made the move.

I mean, it wasn't just him.

There was plenty more that were behind it, but he made the move to say, Okay, you know what, we're not going to renew your business licenses.

We're not going to allow you to buy unless you do it on the west side of the tracks.

Right?

And when people hear West Las Vegas, of course, they're gonna think Summerlin today.

But at that time, it is what we now call the Historic Westside, which is just west of the tracks right behind Union Plaza, you know, that whole area there.

So yeah, that's where the west side was.

-You do a tremendous job of documenting the lows and also the highs of the Historic Westside, one of them being when the Moulin Rouge opened, the first racially integrated casino in the entire country.

And for this particular film, you're using computer generated images for that part.

Why, and what does it add?

-Well, as you know now, the site of the original Moulin Rouge is an empty lot now.

And I think just using a lot of archival photos, because there's no video footage.

Do you believe that?

Very little video footage of that original site.

So there's just black and white pictures.

And when young people watch this, they're like, Ah, that's just some ancient history.

So we wanted to bring it in full color.

We wanted to make it as realistic as possible so they could be there.

-Tell people how they can watch this.

-Okay, so we're opening at Galaxy Theatres at the Boulevard Mall on March 6.

We're trying to get more dates.

I've had difficulty getting other theaters to allow us, but yeah.

So March 6, 6 p.m., Boulevard Mall.

Tickets are available on slicktion.com exclusively.

-Thank you, Emmett Gates, so much for your time.

And thank you for watching, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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