Free Speech Coalition Meeting in Vegas at the Lingerie Convention - Synopsis

[RedCherry]

Zoning for adult entertainment Businesses

Allen Lichtenstein who is an attorney, and representative for ACLU, told about a "tax" that Nevada has recently passed on adult entertainment industries.

Basically, you can't single out a business type and tax them unduly, you can only charge them admistrative costs, etc. for licensing.

What Nevada has done to get around this is they say, ok adult entertainment causes more violence and crime in the area, therefore we need to use more police because of this, and this causes our costs to go up, so we can charge these people a higher tax.

When this law was up for discussion, not one business from the adult entertaintment industry was there to speak against it. The only party was the ACLU. The law was passed, although amended so that only entertainment clubs that are 300 seats or larger are subject to the tax.

They are trying to get this decreased. I asked the question, did they forsee an adult entertainment tax on the type of businesses we run? Home based webmaster businesses, have no clients at our house, etc. etc. and they are feeling with the conservative government we now have in charge, this could be a trend.

I don't know about you, but to hell with a sin tax on our business. And I could see them adding photographers into that mix too very easily.

I'm gonna be using alot in this post. Truthfully, I am guilty of not following what laws are up, but damn, you'd think some of those big clubs in Vegas would be! I can't believe none of them showed up to fight this.

[RedCherry]

Found this on FSC's site about the adult entertainment tax in Nevada.

Nevada Senate Bill 247, because in Nevada you can get it 24-7, imposes a 10% tax on adult entertainment and as of 4/27/05 is in the assembly committee on commerce and labor. This legislation typifies lawmakers’ efforts to trap unwary business owners.

One section specifically deals with the lettering on admission tickets. If not followed correctly ‘specifying 10% tax included’ it can potentially cost tens of thousands of dollars in misreported revenue and tax.

[docholly]

gosh i must have been asleep when you posted about coming over the hump from Pahrump.. the Rio is like 2 blocks from me.. and I had to be there today..dammit..

glad you got good info from this and nice to see the ACLU weighing in.. i think they have a bit more clout..

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by docholly

gosh i must have been asleep when you posted about coming over the hump from Pahrump.. the Rio is like 2 blocks from me.. and I had to be there today..dammit..

glad you got good info from this and nice to see the ACLU weighing in.. i think they have a bit more clout..

I agree about the ACLU, I plan on joining them too. I was so glad to hear they represent the adult industry, go 1st amendment rights!

I really expected to see some adult webmasters there, there are quite a few companies based out of Vegas, but the only ones I saw that were not at the lingerie trade show where from sincity chamber of commerce. Another neat group I met, they are trying to start an chamber of commerce that is more open to adult businesses after being discriminated by the Vegas CC. They have everything from adult webmasters to escorts in their membership.

Once they have enough members, they also plan on getting group health insurance plans. I told them they need to post on boards and get members from the adult webmaster community.
I want to keep my eye on them, I'd LOVE to get group rates for health insurance, we pay too damn much a month.

[docholly]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

I really expected to see some adult webmasters there, there are quite a few companies based out of Vegas, but the only ones I saw that were not at the lingerie trade show where from sincity chamber of commerce. Another neat group I met, they are trying to start an chamber of commerce that is more open to adult businesses after being discriminated by the Vegas CC. They have everything from adult webmasters to escorts in their membership.

Once they have enough members, they also plan on getting group health insurance plans. I told them they need to post on boards and get members from the adult webmaster community.
I want to keep my eye on them, I'd LOVE to get group rates for health insurance, we pay too damn much a month.

That's a good thing.. the insurance.. goddess knows we pay enough.

I looked at their list of members and very few are from the adult industry and the ones that are like the Chicken Ranch and Deja Vu Girls are brothels or clubs. I didn't any representation from like the major web players here, and maybe because the chamber directors etc just don't know who they are.. but I thought at least Streamray and Vivid would be there (on the list)

Since i returned last summer i've been trying to get more participation in our little Camgirl breakfasts at the Palms.. we meet monthly, set up photo shoot exchanges, new traffic sources etc but it would be good to get a broader cross section with wm participating etc. Some of these girls would do exclusive shoots etc for either money or traffic.

I think the Sin City Chamber will get very few single providers as their minimum is 250.00 which is kind of steep for most of the indie porn girls..

I signed up to go to the event on the 20th and check it out.. then see if its worth the 400.00 to join and i can 'umbrella' them in.

Thanks for doing all this networking!!

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by docholly

I signed up to go to the event on the 20th and check it out.. then see if its worth the 400.00 to join and i can 'umbrella' them in.

Thanks for doing all this networking!!

You are welcome! Let me know what you think, Michael and his wife seemed very nice. I think their original intent was more "brick and mortar" adult entertaintment, and escorts. Hopefully he will start looking at adult webmasters / companies too to broaden his member base. The one thing about being an independant webmaster is lack of group health insurance, and I'm all for that. I used to belong to LVCC just for that benefit...until they raised the rates to over $400/mo for MadHatter and I for basic coverage...didn't seem like much of a savings to us, and that was over 3 years ago. Now I'm on Anthem, which has a high deductible (3k) but truthfully, have saved more money despite that i'm no where near having spent my deductible yet, then I ever did with the more expensive plan with LVCC. Go figure.

[RedCherry]

Someone pointed out on another thread this article yesterday on Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051012/film_nm/porn_dc re the current law that would make simulated sex and lavicious depecition of genitals, even if clothed, fall under 2257. Glad to see mainstream media FINALLY reporting on this stuff!