A federal judge has upheld Clark County’s ordinance banning people from stopping or standing on Strip pedestrian bridges, finding that the rule “does not substantially burden constitutionally protected activity.”

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey said in a Sept. 25 decision that the 2024 law, which was challenged by two street performers and a woman who uses a wheelchair, served the county’s interests in public safety and pedestrian traffic control. She granted the county summary judgment.

Her ruling was applauded by the county and the Nevada Resort Association and criticized by the ACLU, which represented plaintiffs and is appealing.

“It was a well-founded decision,” said Virginia Valentine, the association’s president, in a statement. “The county’s ordinance is an important public safety measure that helps protect employees, visitors and residents throughout the resort corridor. It does not diminish or restrict First Amendment rights; rather, it establishes reasonable measures to ensure pedestrian bridges remain clear and accessible for their intended purpose.”

County spokesperson Jennifer Cooper said in an email that the ordinance at issue protects public safety while balancing people’s rights. The law makes the forbidden conduct a misdemeanor punishable by a fine, up to six months in jail, or both.

But ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said the decision was wrong and raised concerns about civil liberties. He called it “somewhat of a dangerous decision.”

“I just think it’s inherently problematic to undercut Nevada’s First Amendment rights at the behest of law enforcement, government officials and big casino corporations that don’t hold the same value for ordinary people’s rights as they do for a bottom line,” he said in a phone interview.

Attorneys for the ACLU of Nevada as well as Maggie McLetchie and Leo Wolpert, who have represented the Las Vegas Review-Journal in unrelated litigation, represented the challengers.

McLetchie said Tuesday that the resorts, county and Metropolitan Police Department worked together to create the ordinance, which she described as part of a decades-long effort to sterilize public streets and limit speech for the benefit of tourism.

“The County has shown that there are plenty of alternatives for plaintiffs to perform in Las Vegas’ tourist corridor,” Dorsey wrote. “If they must be stationary, the rest of the street-level sidewalks on the Strip are available to them.”

Empty sidewalks are not comparable with busy pedestrian bridges, McLetchie said.

Dorsey said the ordinance was “narrowly tailored to achieve the government’s interests in public safety and the flow of traffic on pedestrian bridges.”

The judge said pedestrian bridges make up only about 6 percent of the Strip’s sidewalk space — later acknowledging that plaintiffs’ attorneys dispute that figure — and cited statistics showing the importance of tourism to Las Vegas.

“Tourism is a crucial revenue stream in this town,” Dorsey noted.

She also referenced concerns from law enforcement about undesirable activity on the pedestrian bridges, including homeless people letting their dogs roam unleashed, fights, vendors setting up shop and drug use.

Lawyers for plaintiffs Lisa McAllister, Brandon Summers and Jordan Polovina had argued the ordinance was vague and overly broad. Summers plays the violin as a street performer and Polovina plays the cello, according to court papers.

They asserted that the pedestrian bridges were an important public forum, but that the law banned conduct important for most First Amendment activity and violated the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on laws that encourage discriminatory enforcement.

County attorneys argued in court papers that the plaintiffs’ challenges were “meritless” and that the ordinance did not ban expression.

“Though the law may outright prohibit a limited category of protected speech — namely, any conduct that cannot be conducted while on the move, like performing with a large instrument — it does not prevent any speech-related conduct that can be done while moving, and it legitimately reaches other unprotected conduct like sleeping, loitering, and vending,” the judge wrote.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.