Brothel code changes delayed yet again; to be revisited in Feburary

After months of delays for proposed amendments to the Nye County code regulating the brothel industry, it appears any changes won’t take place until the new year.

At a county commission meeting Tuesday, the board unanimously rejected the current bill, a vote one commissioner thought already had happened.

“I thought it was clear at the last meeting that we rejected the one that was proposed,” Commissioner Dan Schinhofen said. “We had asked staff to go back and work on it and thin it out a bit, and apparently we didn’t do that.”

Commissioner Butch Borasky said that even though the code has yet to be changed, he has been putting in time working on updating the code.

“I’ve been working on this for some time and I finally got through with staff,” Borasky said. “I’ll be bringing a different bill back for your viewing in February. This one will be slimmed down.”

The proposed changes will include raising several fees associated with brothels.

The new fees will liekly include raising a quarterly licensing fee that brothels pay from $1,875 to $2,500 for an operation with one to five prostitutes, a brothel with 11 to 15 prostitutes will be $7,500, and a brothel with 16 to 25 legal courtesans will have to pay a $12,500 quarterly licensing fee.

The 11-to-15 quarterly fee was adjusted from its previous number of 11 to 25 prostitutes, with the 16-to-25 prostitute fee being newly added.

However, all this could change by February.

Also, application fees for quarterly brothel worker registrations, background check fees and investigative fees for a change in manager, agent or key employee will both also increase.

Famed brothel owner Dennis Hof said that he is happy it is being delayed yet again, as there are things he believes need to be addressed.

“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” Hof said. “There’s just so much to it, my suggestion is that we meet and go over everything. There are a lot of things that we agree on, they’ve got good ideas. Let’s get those out of the way and then anything we don’t agree on, including raising taxes, then we’ll put in an impact study and explain why and they can make a final decision.”

The fee increase proposal is something that Hof said should be universal no matter what the business and not just single out the brothel industry.

“Brothel fees have always been very high, so why not just raise all business license fees a certain percentage,” Hof questioned. “Why a huge increase for the brothels?

“If my fees are $15,000 a year and a bar’s fees are $300 a year why not just raise them all whatever percentage they think they need.”

As it stands now, revenues for the fiscal year 2016-17 for both licenses and work cards have been budgeted at $75,000. The number was derived by adding up the number of active brothels (five) which equate to revenue increases of $9,250 per quarter and number of current active work cards for brothel workers (121). The county anticipates seeing increased revenues of $5,525 per quarter.

Contact reporter Mick Akers at maker@pvtimes.com. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.