Read more at RGJ.com…

Angel in red: Reno woman helps sex workers
By Geralda Miller

Women who work in the sex industry are not invisible to Sharnel Silvey.

As founder of A Scarlet Covering, a nonprofit organization that provides counseling and resources to women in the sex industry, she continues to work with women who she feels are neglected.

“I embrace them as a human being and want them to know that they’re loved and that we’re here for them,” she said.

Silvey has been busy since the stories that ran two months ago in the Reno Gazette-Journal about her and her organization.

She served Thanksgiving dinner to 40 women who work at Diamond Dolls and Fantasy Girls strip clubs; served dinner, decorated a Christmas tree and delivered gifts to women at the Big 4 Ranch brothel in Ely with members of the Strip Church in Las Vegas. She also has been working two days a month with Judge James Van Winkel in Reno Municipal Court with women arrested for solicitation, a misdemeanor in Nevada.

“We want them to know that we’re here,” Silvey said. “This is an avenue for us to let them know that we support them, regardless of what they’re doing. Society has rejected them and considered them an outcast.”

Sandy McClelland, house mom at Fantasy Girls, said the women who work at the strip club were surprised that Silvey and her organization wanted to serve them dinner.

“I think it’s incredible, really, that there are people that want to go out and do good things for no monetary gain and they just want to do it out of the goodness of their heart,” McClelland said. “I think they like the idea of somebody giving back to them and actually caring.”

Read more at The San Francisco Examiner…

Former NV madam leads helps prostitutes
By Geralda Miller

Sharnel Silvey rides around downtown several times a month with the Reno Police Department’s Regional Street Enforcement Team, eager to talk to the women who will get trapped in a sting operation while soliciting for prostitution.

She approaches a tall, thin woman who stands handcuffed next to an unmarked car, and lets her know she’s not a police officer. She tells her she’s there to assist her and offers her a free HIV test.

“I’m not here to tell them to stop. I am about walking the process out with them,” Silvey said. “It’s hard for a woman that’s in the industry to be able to talk to just anybody about the industry. It’s different. It’s a whole other world.”

Silvey knows and cares about women in the sex industry because she worked for 13 years at Mustang Ranch, first as the “right-hand woman” for former brothel boss Joe Conforte and later as its madam.

In 2007, she founded A Scarlet Covering, a nonprofit organization that offers recovery, counseling, education and development for current and former members of the sex industry who want a new life.

Since then, she’s visited several brothels and strip clubs in northern Nevada. When visiting a brothel, she gives a dozen roses to each working woman.

“Then, we go back to any establishment that we’ve been to during that year at Christmastime and bring baked goods and gifts for the girls,” Silvey said. “Let them know, ‘Hey, we’re still here. We still love you.’”

Last month she finalized arrangements with Washoe County Municipal Court for a specialty court for prostitution. Members of A Scarlet Covering will help assess the needs of the men, women and children who come before the court.

Actually, the writer of this headline should have realized that the report only says that ‘prostitution-related arrests’ are down, as distinguished from ‘prostitution.’  Read more at KOLOTV.com…

Prostitution Around Reno Takes Big Decline

A new report says prostitution-related arrests have plunged around Reno.

A newspaper that examined the figures says prostitution-related arrests have declined to 89 so this year from 251 in 2004.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported the figures as part of a series of stories published Sunday.

Police took credit for the decline, saying fewer prostitutes are working the streets as the result of heightened enforcement activities.

Read more at KRNV.com…

Northern Nevada events boost brothel business

Hot August Nights is a financial boon for many local businesses and that includes the world’s oldest profession.

The Wild Horse Saloon and the Mustang Ranch, just outside Washoe County, are reporting a 25 percent spike in business this week.

The owners say the legal brothels reduce the demand for prostitution on the city streets, although police have acknowledged a spike in that area of the industry as well.

Over the past several months, brothels have reported a negative impact from the recession, but Madame Susan of the Wild Horse Saloon says recently-increased sales are a sign the economy is gaining steam.

Read the whole story at The Reno Gazette-Journal…

Nevada brothel owner files lawsuit against Nye County

A legal brothel has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming county officials are trying to shut down the industry by refusing to license brothel employees.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by the Chicken Ranch, a bordello 60 miles from Las Vegas, is the second against Nye County over regulation of brothels.

Chicken Ranch owner Kenneth Green argues that a county rule requiring brothel buyers to be Nevada residents for at least six months is unconstitutional. He also says the county is refusing to license his brothel manager, a situation he says jeopardizes the business should something happen to him.

Nye County Commission Vice Chairman Andrew “Butch” Borasky on Friday said he couldn’t discuss pending litigation. County attorney Robert Beckett also said he could not comment on the suit.

In a related case pending in federal court, the county disputed arguments that brothel owners are protected by the due process and the privileges and immunities clauses in the U.S. Constitution.

“Legalized prostitution … is not a fundamental right,” the county argued in a case brought by Bruce Kahn, a Texas businessman who agreed to buy the Chicken Ranch but in 2007 was rejected for a brothel license, in part because he did not live in Nevada.

The county argued that prostitution is unlike some protected interstate industries, such as insurance and law.

Read the whole article at The Las Vegas Sun…

State senator calls Las Vegas prostitution policing a sham
By J. Patrick Coolican, David McGrath Schwartz

During a debate about taxing legal prostitution, state Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, committed what is known in politics as a “Kinsley Gaffe,” named for the witty writer who said a gaffe in Washington, D.C., is when someone tells the truth.

Schneider scoffed at moral qualms to taxing legal prostitution, citing the unspoken acceptance of prostitution in Clark County, where, at least officially, it’s not legal.

“It’s almost like a joke. There’s nothing being done to stop it. I don’t see a big dragnet to stop it.”

He continued: “We can’t get all morally high and say, ‘Hey, we shouldn’t be doing this and let’s turn our head.’ ”

He noted advertising on the Strip for “Girls to your room” and massage parlors in his district.

“I’m not naive about girls to your room and what that means. We’ve got pages and pages in the Yellow Pages (for escorts). If we’re gonna be moral about this … and say ‘let’s not tax prostitution,’ I guess we can stand on that. We’re opposed to it, but we condone it, it appears. We don’t have the courage to legalize it or go shut it down,” he said.

His colleague state Sen. Terry Care disputed that police in Southern Nevada aren’t trying to stop prostitution. “I think it’s inaccurate to say it’s condoned. It’s perhaps a losing battle, but I know those efforts are ongoing,” he said.

The proposal to tax legal prostitution died in committee.

Another one bites the dust. Read the whole story at The Reno-Gazette Journal…

Proposed Nevada prostitution tax dies
By BRENDAN RILEY

A plan to levy a $5 state tax on sex acts died Thursday in a Nevada Senate committee, one vote shy of the four needed to keep the proposal alive.

SB369 died on a 3-4 vote in the Senate Taxation Committee despite revisions suggested by Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, a minister, to discourage human trafficking in the sex trade and to ensure that a state ombudsman could help prostitutes get out of the trade.

Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, offered another amendment to spread the estimated $2 million a year raised by the tax among outlying Nevada counties where prostitution is legal. That would have excluded several counties, including two encompassing the state’s population centers of Reno and Las Vegas, where prostitution is prohibited.

Washington, Schneider and the bill’s sponsor, Senate Taxation Chairman Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, cast the only votes for SB369.

There was little comment from the four opponents. Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, said he wouldn’t support a new tax on services; and Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, questioned Schneider’s comments that nothing is done about illegal prostitution in the Las Vegas area.

Schneider said the committee heard testimony that there are about 40,000 sex workers and some 3,000 pimps in the Las Vegas area, yet “we kind of get all morally high on these things.”

The state has not collected a dollar in taxes from prostitution since it was legalized in some rural counties more than 30 years ago, and Coffin said that should change because the state is desperate for revenue.

At an earlier hearing on the measure, witnesses included three sex workers at legal brothels, along with a madam and three bordello owners. All but one of the brothel owners spoke in favor of Coffin’s plan to levy the tax and create a state ombudsman to counsel sex workers.

Opponents included prostitution researcher Melissa Farley who termed the bill “an act of legislative pimping” and said the tax proceeds would be “blood money” derived from “a form of sexual abuse” and “paid rape.”

Read the whole story at The Las Vegas Review Journal…

Nevada Prostitutes support tax on clients to ease budget crisis
By ED VOGEL

Three legal prostitutes told legislators Tuesday that they support a $5 tax for every session with a client as a way of doing their part to help the state solve some of its financial woes.

“I love my job and thank the great state of Nevada for allowing me to work at a job I love,” said Deanne “Air Force Amy” Salinger, a prostitute at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Lyon County just outside of Carson City. “If $5 a person can raise $2 million a year, I am for it.”

Another Bunny Ranch prostitute, Brooke Taylor, and Love Ranch sex worker Chloe Daniels, also testified in support of Senate Bill 369. All three women have been featured on TV shows and in movies.

Under the bill, patrons would be assessed a $5 tax when hiring a legal prostitute. It would be the first time Nevada ever has levied a direct tax on prostitution.

Since 1971, Nevada has allowed rural counties to decide whether to legalize prostitution. Twenty-five brothels operate in eight counties.

Though it probably was one of the most unusual Senate Taxation Committee hearings in years, the bill has virtually no chance of passing. The Taxation Committee took no vote Tuesday and under legislative rules the committee must approve it by Friday or it will be considered dead for the remainder of the 2009 Legislature.

Gov. Jim Gibbons also has said he would veto such a bill. Gibbons has vowed to veto all tax bills but he also opposes this particular piece of legislation, saying it would legitimize the industry.

In addition, an Associated Press poll found the most of the seven members of the committee oppose the bill.

Nationally known prostitution opponent Melissa Farley delivered the strongest criticism Tuesday. SB369 is “an act of legislative pimping,” she told the committee.

“The state would step into the role of pimp with the $5 pimp’s cut going to the government,” said Farley, a psychologist who has studied the effects of prostitution on women.

The message to pimps would be “Come over to Nevada,’” she added. “We consider you another business here.”

Now, that’s a neat spin on ‘Sin Taxes.’ Read the whole story at The North Lake Tahoe Bonanza…

Prostitution tax an option for Nevada Legislature

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, Monday introduced legislation to create an excise tax on the use of prostitutes.

The tax in SB369 would not be on the earnings of the prostitute but $5 levied on the patron for use of the prostitute’s services.

Coffin said it’s obvious the tax would be primarily levied on licensed brothels. But he said the bill isn’t limited to them.

“It’s for everybody,” he said.

While the bill gives the Taxation Department the authority to examine the books kept for or by sex workers, neither Coffin nor the language in the bill explains how they would track down those people who aren’t managers of a legal and licensed brothel.

It says that the state can make an agreement with county fair and recreation officials, commissioners or city officials to exchange information that can identify potential taxpayers.

Coffin said there would be no pressure on taxation officials to enforce the tax on the streets.

He said George Flynt, lobbyist for the legal brothel industry, has offered in the past to have brothels pay a tax to the state.

“I’m taking them up on it,” said Coffin.

Coffin said the bill contains other provisions beyond the tax, primarily creation of an Ombudsman for Sex Workers within the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.

“The ladies doing this illegally need to be able to access the ombudsman,” he said pointing out they have nowhere to go for help because their business is a crime.

“An excise tax is hereby imposed on each patron who uses the prostitution services of a prostitute in the amount of $5 for each calendar day or portion thereof that the patron uses the prostitution services of that prostitute,” the bill states.

It directs the prostitute to either collect the tax from each patron or pay it herself, fill out a quarterly form on her activities and pay the department the money owed.

Cooler heads prevailed and the fine state of Nevada won’t be legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas, after all.  Read the whole story at The Las Vegas Sun…

Nevada Legislature will pass on taxing prostitution
By David McGrath Schwartz

The debate over legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas will have to continue on Internet message boards and around office water coolers. The 2009 Legislature won’t be taking it up.

George Flint, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, was informed this week by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley that a proposal to allow legal brothels in the state’s most populous counties will not be considered this session.

Legislative staff had been drafting a bill to allow the mayor of Las Vegas to issue up to three brothel licenses as a sort of pilot program until a brothel licensing board could be established.

In exchange for the opportunity to expand into the state’s urban counties, the industry volunteered to be taxed by the state.

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, confirmed such a bill had been in the works.

“The question was broached, in these hard economic times, whether the city of Las Vegas should have legal houses of prostitution,” he said. “Flint supported it, many groups do not.”

Anderson said legislative staff will not finish drafting the bill.

“It’s not a small thing,” Anderson said. “We already have a full plate … before we take this. It’s a matter of time.”

Rural counties sometimes collect large fees from the businesses, but the state has resisted taxing them because of the stigma attached to prostitution.

Buckley met with Flint in December to talk about the proposal and agreed to discuss it with him again in February.

After their meeting this week in Buckley’s Legislative Building office, a somber Flint emerged to declare that his yearlong behind-the-scenes effort had failed.

“Leadership in the Assembly told me they would not take it under advisement,” he said. “I’m disappointed. I felt they at least would look at the merits of the issue.”

Asked why the bill would not be heard, Buckley said Wednesday: “I do not support legalizing prostitution.”

Buckley runs a disciplined caucus and her strong opposition to a bill guarantees its failure.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, made national headlines last month after the Sun reported he would be willing to grant a hearing on proposals to legalize and regulate prostitution in Las Vegas and Nevada’s other urban areas. (State law currently allows prostitution only in counties with fewer than 400,000 residents, meaning it’s banned in Clark and Washoe counties.)

The news coverage reignited a debate that has raged off and on for years. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has periodically called for a public discussion of legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas as a way to redevelop downtown.

Despite seeing some momentum in the Senate for the proposal, Flint said Buckley’s opposition means the issue is dead.

“There’s a sadness. It’s the only major industry in the state that doesn’t pay anything” in taxes to the state, he said. “I’ve seen legal and regulated, and illegal and unregulated. The first is better.”

He continued, “Forty-seven years in this business, you win some, you lose some. I’ve come to blame myself.”