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Street performers represented by the ACLU are suing Clark County, claiming their rights were violated when police cited them for performing on public sidewalks in front of casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.
Guitarist and singer Suzette Banasik and Elvis Presley impersonator William Jablonski filed suit in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Thursday against the county, along with District Attorney David Roger, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.
The performers' suit challenges statutes and codes they say "violate free speech, due process and equal protection provisions of the U.S. and Nevada constitutions and amount to unconstitutional restraints on personal speech and expression.''
"Metro officers routinely harass street performers and apply non-applicable and unconstitutional laws to street performers who are performing on the sidewalks along the Las Vegas Strip,'' the suit charges. "Police officers have ticketed and/or arrested street performers for such violations as operating a business without a license, begging/soliciting alms (donations), obstructing the sidewalk, storing materials on the sidewalk, disorderly conduct, obscene materials and being a public nuisance.''
Spokesmen for both Clark County and Metro declined comment on the lawsuit Friday.
The Las Vegas Strip south of Sahara Avenue is in unincorporated Clark County.
This is the latest in a series of ACLU lawsuits against the county and the city of Las Vegas over free speech rights on the Strip and at the Fremont Street Experience.
The ACLU previously won a lawsuit permitting so-called smut-peddlers to distribute adult advertising on the Strip as well as a lawsuit asserting free speech rights at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas.
In the latest case, the ACLU attorneys complain Metro is applying "inapplicable laws to street performers in order to keep them off the sidewalks of the Strip upon the request of, or in order to appease, the various security officials of the Strip hotel and casino properties.''
"Metro targets street performers while allowing others, such as hand-billers and street preachers, to utilize the same areas it excludes street performers from,'' the suit charges.
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