Could a wild night out that includes a simple misdemeanor crime like loitering ultimately lead to a one-year ban from the Strip? After Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s major crime bill passed in November’s Special Session of the Nevada Legislature, it will at least become a possibility in 2026. 

The sweeping 73-page legislation, known as the Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act, is Lombardo’s second attempt to overhaul the state’s criminal justice system after his original version failed to pass during the regular session this summer. While it broadly includes enhanced penalties for crimes like DUI and child pornography, plus added protections for hospitality workers and retail theft victims, it also features a last-minute Democratic compromise amendment that prohibits immigration enforcement agents from accessing school campuses without a warrant.

One particularly controversial component requires the Clark County Board of Commissioners to re-establish boundaries for a Strip “corridor,” from which the county’s Justice Court could ban individuals for up to one year, even for misdemeanor crimes. The Strip previously experimented with a similar corridor court from 2023 to 2024, issuing more than 4,000 bans before judges voted to dismantle it due to strained resources and high caseloads. 

Clark County chief communications officer Jennifer Cooper said in an email that commissioners have “no timeline” for when they expect to set the mandated corridor boundaries, noting that the Justice Court has sole authority to establish a corridor court.

The Culinary Union joined gaming companies like Boyd Gaming, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts in testifying in favor of the bill, with some proponents citing increased crime and a need for public safety measures for Strip tourists and workers.

However, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill touted “historic reductions” in an October press conference. The state’s crime data supports that claim, with property crimes and violent crimes down more than 20% year-over-year.

Lombardo’s press secretary Josh Meny said in an email to the Weekly that the safety of the Strip—the “heartbeat” of Nevada’s economy—was paramount. 

“By designating high-risk tourist corridors and strengthening protections for hospitality workers, the bill helps reduce criminal activity, preserve the Strip’s reputation as a secure destination, and support the economic vitality and prosperity of Nevada,” Meny said.

Opponents of the Strip corridor bans included the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada (ACLU), the Fines and Fees Justice Center and Clark County public defenders Paloma Guerrero and Brennan Bartley, who argued that the policy disproportionately targets the homeless given the fact that a Clark County ordinance went into effect in February making it a misdemeanor for people to camp, lay down, sleep or store personal property in public spaces.

The public defenders noted that most cases in the now-shuttered corridor court involved minor crimes committed by homeless individuals, and those crimes already carry penalties of up to six months of jail time and a fine up to $1,000. 

“This courtroom was also created with the premise that people were going to be offered services, but those services never came,” Guerrero said in a November 24 ACLU of Nevada webinar on the bill. “The result of that was a revolving door or plea factory for homeless people.”

Southern Nevada’s homeless population grew 20% between 2023 and 2024, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Would reinstating the Strip bans help alleviate the underlying causes of homelessness, like addiction? Critics like Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, say absolutely not.

“It’s not a specialty court that’s treating people based on individual conditions. It simply allows resorts to accuse people of loitering, obstructing, or whatever the case, and have those individuals arrested—at which point an order out provision will allow for those individuals to be banished for a year or face more serious penalties,” Haseebullah says.

First-time offenders could be banned from the Strip corridor for up to one year, while those facing subsequent offenses within two years must receive a mandatory one-year ban. Violating a ban is itself a misdemeanor crime, creating what critics call a punitive cycle concentrated on people with nowhere else to go. 

Robert Banghart, who lived on the streets and tunnels near the Strip from 2013 until he entered long-term addiction treatment in 2018, was once among them. Today, he advocates for the homeless through leadership roles with groups like substance treatment center Crossroads of Southern Nevada and the nonprofit Shine A Light Foundation, which provides outreach and case management. 

“A lot of these guys have a hustle that helps them survive, like busking, panhandling, or God knows what else. Of course, some homeless people are up to no good, but a lot more are just trying to get by,” Banghart says. “With the crime bill, the fact that they’re so concerned about the [Strip bans]—and not how we can connect them to the services they need—is probably the scariest part of all. How does separating them further solve the problem?”

The sprawling bill split the Democratic-majority Legislature. Majority leader Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro, who negotiated the bill with Lombardo and voted yes on it, did not respond to a request for comment. Democratic state Sen. Fabian Doñate, whose jurisdiction includes the resort corridor, says his “yes” vote hinged on a need to protect Strip workers like his own father, as well as the immigration amendment for Nevada’s students. 

Democratic Assemblymember Duy Nguyen—one of 11 in the 42-member body who opposed the bill in the special session—was closer to the middle of the pack.

“We’re the entertainment capital of the world, but no one wants to come when there are safety challenges. If the [corridor] court can mitigate those risk factors, great. But there are some concerns about the process and implementation,” Nguyen says. “It became law, but the next Legislature can always go in and fix a few things. We can protect our livelihood in the Strip corridor and also address some of the challenges that our unhoused community is experiencing. We don’t have to do just one.”

Haseebullah expects to see a push for a new Strip corridor court within the next year and a half, though he admits he doesn’t know “how far it will get.” Bans can still be issued either way, though a new court would centralize its efforts. 

Still, he argues that the act of banning people from the Strip in and of itself is “not only a constitutional issue, but a due process issue that pervades its way into human rights.” In his perspective, lawmakers sided with the interests of the resorts at the expense of constitutional rights. 

“If you are creating a system that’s specifically designed to appeal to people’s vices, but you wash your hands of this and pretend it doesn’t have an implication or overlap with what’s going on, it’s a little disingenuous at best,” Haseebullah says.

The bill goes into effect on January 1.

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