TONOPAH, Nev. — Opponents of legalized prostitution in Nye County, Nev., failed by Friday's deadline to turn in the required 1,963 signatures to place a referendum on the November ballot to eliminate the county’s brothels.
Advocates against legal prostitution in Nye County now have only one other avenue to reach voters in November — to get county commissioners to agree to put it on the ballot before a July 16 deadline. But that appears unlikely as the commissioners are decidedly divided on the issue.
Sheri's Ranch, Chicken Ranch, Love Ranch, Dennis Hof’s Cathouse and Dennis Hof’s Alien Cathouse brothels legally do business as brothels in Nye County, which is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Las Vegas.
The same advocates pushing to ban the brothels, the nonprofit No To Abuse, also targeted Lyon County with a signature-gathering drive to ban the brothels in the Northern Nevada county.
But Lyon County’s Board of Commissioners took a different approach to the issue last month by placing an advisory question on the ballot in November.
The question will ask voters whether the Board of Commissioners should end legalized prostitution in Lyon County. If the majority of voters choose to make it illegal, the board could choose to rescind the existing ordinance.
The attempts in Nye and Lyon counties have been viewed as the most significant attempt in recent years to roll back legalized prostitution in Nevada.
Nevada, the only place in the U.S. where brothels can operate legally, allows brothels only in counties with populations of less than 700,000. There are 16 Nevada counties that allow legalized prostitution.
Dennis Hof, who is running for a state Assembly seat in Nye and neigboring counties, operates brothels in both Lyon and Nye counties.
Hof told the Los Angeles Times yesterday that the failure to get the signatures needed to eliminate brothels fit his new campaign slogan: “Make Nevada Nevada Again.”
“Let’s stop the nonsense and get back to business,” Hof said.
