RENO, Nev. AP โ Lance Gilman is a thriving businessman with dozens of employees. That those workers include a good many prostitutes didn't faze the people of a rural Nevada county who recently elected him as a Storey County commissioner by a wide margin. The Mustang Ranch brothel owner is the first such owner to win election to public office in Nevada since prostitution was legalized here in , Nevada historian Guy Rocha said. And he's believed to be the first to do so in the state's year history.
Some two dozen brothels legally operate in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties. Prostitution is illegal in the counties that include Las Vegas and Reno, the state's population centers. Gilman, 68, a self-described "dye-in-the-wool Republican who loves American values," said he encountered few objections to his Mustang Ranch ownership during his campaign in the county of 4, He won with 62 percent of the vote on Nov.
It has 44 full-time employees, and 30 to 80 working girls, depending on the season. Gilman attributes his victory to his entrepreneurial experience. Mustang Ranch is only a small part of his business empire, which includes business parks, a Harley-Davidson dealership and master planned communities in California and Nevada. Mustang Ranch became the state's first legal brothel โ and most infamous โ under former owner Joe Conforte. Heavyweight boxer Oscar Bonavena was slain there in The cathouse operated until when the federal government seized it after guilty verdicts against its parent companies and manager in a federal fraud and racketeering trial.
Conforte is now a fugitive in Brazil. Gilman bought the gaudy pink stucco buildings that once housed the bordello in and moved them a short distance next to his Wild Horse brothel. He assumed ownership of the Mustang Ranch trademark when he bought the buildings from the government. His current operation, which includes the two houses of prostitution, two restaurants and a nightclub, now operates under the Mustang Ranch name.
It's different in urban Nevada, where prostitution is a mixed, controversial bag. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. When the nation thinks about Nevada, Reid said, "it should think about the world's newest ideas and newest careers โ not about its oldest profession. Gilman maintains illegal prostitution is rampant across the country, and it makes more sense to legalize and regulate it. He said bordellos pay significant taxes to rural counties and the women are regularly checked by doctors.
