MARK WAITE / PVT Brothel owners interviewed about the overturning of a state ban on advertising don't expect to be explicitly advertising their wares on billboards like these, which skirted the old law on Highway 160 in Pahrump. Advertisement

Shady Lady Ranch brothel owner Bobbi Davis said she joined a lawsuit that overturned a state ban on brothel advertising to level the playing field.

"The law has really created an imbalance and the imbalance was the illegal acts of prostitution have been able to go rampant," Davis, owner of a brothel in Sarcobatus Flats north of Beatty along Highway 95 said Monday.

While escort services, believed to be fronts for prostitution, put up racy billboards in Las Vegas and handed out fliers on the Las Vegas strip, legitimate brothels were expected to keep quiet.

"A legal business that is licensed and county licensed couldn't do it. We couldn't even inform people that there was an alternative to illegal prostitution, and that's the reason that has been done. All we really wanted, what all the brothels wanted, was an identifier ... so people would know there was an alternative," Davis said.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan Thursday declared the state statutes about brothel advertising "overly broad and unconstitutional." Civil rights advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada hailed the decision.

"Violations of anyone's free speech rights are in a sense violations of everyone's free speech rights," Gary Peck, ACLU executive director, told the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of Davis, the weekly Las Vegas alternative publication CityLife, which publishes numerous personal ads, and the High Desert Advocate, published in West Wendover.

Davis predicted the decision wouldn't lead to a flurry of brothel advertising in Pahrump, where larger operations like The Chicken Ranch and Sheri's Ranch exist.

"You don't have to be a scientist to figure out that law could've been beaten years ago. But the majority of the big operators were never satisfied with the way things were," Crystal brothel owner Joe Richards said.

Richards said he wasn't sure what his advertising strategy would be, but he envisioned advertising his brothel in some publications in Las Vegas.

"I think the license holders have to be careful -- the county holds the bottom line, the brothel license. So what they have to do is not to offend them too badly," Richards said.

Richards aroused the ire of some local residents with his billboards that dance around the issue, advertising a brothel art museum in Crystal as a massage or a spa. The 2007 Pahrump Rural Phone Book yellow pages, however, include a category for brothels with full-color ads. (The phone book is published by the Pahrump Valley Times.)

Richards recalled when he couldn't even run an ad for a massage parlor and said he put up the first billboard in Pahrump.

The Chicken Ranch issued a statement that said, "From their inception these two laws were unfair, unjust and discriminatory against the brothel industry. Brothels are legalized and licensed to conduct business in the State of Nevada. In fact brothels -- unlike most every other type of business or industry -- are put to a higher standard of investigation, examination and scrutiny even before they are licensed to operate."

It continued, "To deny a legal business the ability to communicate or market itself in the same manner that every other business is allowed to do is unconscionable."

Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo recalled bringing to the attention of the Nye County Liquor and Licensing Board, the board that regulates brothels, The Chicken Ranch attempt to advertise itself in a Las Vegas publication early in his first term, in 2003. The advertisement was placed in Clark County, outside of the sheriff's jurisdiction, but DeMeo said he wanted the Nye County board to be aware of it. No more advertising was placed by the brothels after that.

"It caused a bit of a stir. I was getting complaints from people in Las Vegas. I was getting complaints from people in Pahrump and Nye County about it," DeMeo said. "We left it in the lap of Clark County."

But DeMeo said Clark County decided not to prosecute.

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett said he wants to inspect the court decision to see exactly what the ruling involves. Beckett said Nye County officials watched as Clark County tried to prohibit people handing out fliers for escort services on the Las Vegas Strip.

"The Clark County DA"s office had years and years of litigation and they lost," Beckett said. "That was some very expensive and extremely lengthy litigation. That happened, and we obviously took note of that."

He added, "There are some very, very fine lines. I'd have to look at the new law and see what is permissible."

The Nye County brothel ordinance limits advertising to a sign in front of a brothel. Beckett said he'd have to study the ruling to see whether he would recommend to Nye County commissioners that they change the ordinance.

One comment common to people interviewed about the subject was that any brothel advertising should be tasteful and discrete.

The Chicken Ranch owners said the restriction prohibited legal brothels from promoting their business and explaining the benefits of legal prostitution. Davis said the advertising for illegal prostitution in Las Vegas promotes a business where the working girls aren't tested regularly.

"The big houses always get all the stuff," Davis said. "The others are small pop and pop operations. They're dying on the vine because nobody's doing anything for them, we can't promote."

Bobby's Buckeye Bar, a brothel in Tonopah, has been closed for 10 years. The Cottontail Ranch, Esmeralda County's only brothel at Lida Junction, has been closed for four years.

When billboards in Las Vegas advertise "girls direct to your room, full service," Davis said, Clark County officials know exactly what "full service" means.

Davis said she couldn't even get the Las Vegas Review-Journal to publish an advertisement for a gardener, bartender or housekeeper. The Pahrump Valley Times and the Tonopah Times-Bonanza routinely publish want ads for madams, maintenance personnel or ordinary non-sex workers in the brothels.

"We would like the advertising to not be overwhelming and to be tasteful," Beckett said. "Even if the door is flung open, we hope they would advertise with discretion."