Mirage Hotel

Once the property is determined to be a public forum, the full panoply of First Amendment rights must be recognized and honored. Further, regulation by the government--or by a private actor who has assumed the traditional governmental function of policing the property as the Mirage and Treasure Island have done here--then becomes "sharply circumscribed." [FN9] Therefore, I believe that the majority is in error in concluding that the Mirage and Treasure Island can regulate speech on the easement areas by virtue of their ownership of the underlying property. [FN10]

FN9. Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983); see also Venetian Casino Resort v. Local Joint Exec. Bd. of Las Vegas, 45 F.Supp.2d 1027, 1035 (D.Nev.1999) ("Thoroughfare sidewalks parallel to the main public street in a city, that allow citizens to move from one part of the city to the next, have traditionally been exclusively owned and maintained by the government. Consequently, by owning and maintaining the particular sidewalk at issue in this case, the Venetian is performing a public function.").

FN10. See Venetian, 45 F.Supp.2d at 1035-36 (holding that the sidewalk in front of the Venetian casino, which lies directly across from the Mirage and Treasure Island on the Strip, was a public forum subject to the full protections of the First Amendment despite the sidewalk's private ownership); Citizens to End Animal Suffering & Exploitation, Inc. v. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Inc., 745 F.Supp. 65, 70-72 (D.Mass.1990) (holding that the lanes in the Faneuil Hall marketplace were public forums subject to the full protections of the First Amendment despite their being leased to a private enterprise).