las vegas — Nevada judges created a unique court two years ago to punish crimes such as petty theft, assault, drug crimes and loitering committed on the Las Vegas Strip by banning offenders from entering the state’s prominent tourist area for a year.
The program was hailed as a success by the state’s powerful casino and resort owners, but others questioned its legality and judges voted to dissolve it after a year and a half.
But now with tourism in Las Vegas With the decline and decline in the number of visitors at resorts and convention centers compared to last year, lawmakers are preparing to revive the idea in a special session that began Thursday despite the decline in crime.
Major casinos and labor unions have teamed up to amend Gov. Joe Lombardo’s sweeping crime package to bring back the Corridor Resort Court, saying it’s necessary to make the strip safer for workers and more attractive to tourists.
“It is important for the safety of our guests and employees in the workplace,” said Virginia Valentine, president of the influential Nevada Resort Association and one of the proposal’s main supporters. “It’s also important to the entire guest experience.”
Lombardo’s crime package, called the “Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act,” also proposes enhanced penalties for repeat offenders as well as a long list of crimes, including burglary and theft, possession of child pornography, assault and battery against hospitality employees, and drunken driving involving death. It would also expand the scope of crimes such as stalking to include cyberstalking.
However, critics of the Corridor Court have questioned the legality of preventing people from entering an area, and say this is more about optics than reality.
Athar Hasibullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the now-defunct court unfairly targeted homeless people living in the area and was an attempt to privatize public streets — where people who violate the order could be arrested for walking on the sidewalk outside the resort.
“The reality is that if it’s about protecting what happens inside the resorts, that’s one thing, because it’s private property, but we’re talking about people on the street,” Hasibullah said. “Targeted enforcement actions toward people who take refuge on property they may consider undesirable is inconsistent with the way the Constitution should work.”
No other city that is a major tourist destination – whether Disney World in Orlando or Time Square in New York City – has a separate court to deal with crimes arising from its tourist centers. The closest parallels would be Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, where there are federal courts to deal with crimes that occurred in the parks.
The Resort Corridor Court handled low-level cases that arose on the Strip and nearby resorts such as the Palms Casino Resort and the Rio Hotel and Casino.
More than 4,100 people were banned from the Strip, almost all of them by the Corridor Resort Court, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Las Vegas Circuit Court did not respond to AP requests for information.
Any criminal who is prevented from entering the corridor could be jailed if they return.
The amendment proposes requiring the court to submit an annual report that includes the number of people banned from entering the corridor, their crime and the rate of successful completion of their sentence. No general data was available about the work of the previous court.
Ted Papageorge, treasurer of Culinary Union Local 226, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, said the union has been supportive of the corridor court because it acts as a deterrent to crime and thus keeps its workers safe when commuting to and from work, as well as while working in casinos.
Papageorge said the sector is the economic engine of the country, and it is important to ensure that customers feel safe, otherwise they will go elsewhere and workers may lose their jobs.
The proposal comes as Las Vegas continues to see a decline in tourism. Between June 2024 and June 2025, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported an 11 percent decline in visitors.
Crime rates on the Strip are also down compared to last year, according to data from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. As of November, violent crimes such as assault and murder were down 6 percent from 2024. Trespassing makes up the largest number of crimes reported this year, but even that is down 35 percent from last year.
Opponents say many of the people banned by the court from entering the corridor were living on the streets.
Nearly 8,000 people were experiencing homelessness in Clark County in 2024, according to the county’s annual homelessness count, and some are living in hundreds of miles of storm drains beneath the strip.
People entering the tunnels at the edge of the resort’s boardwalk have been repeatedly arrested for violating a boardwalk court order prohibiting them from entering the area, according to Nick Shepak, Nevada state director for the Fines and Fees Justice Center, an organization that aims to reform the justice system by eliminating fines and fees that it claims are unfair.
The entire process becomes “a revolving door for our most vulnerable residents in that area,” Shepak said. “We are adding new layers of punishment and supervision to severely struggling individuals and we cannot fine, charge, and arrest our way out of these problems.”