Tarnish on the wedding chapels in Las Vegas

By JOE SCHOENMANN
Las Vegas Sun
Friday, October 19, 2007

Last week, a married couple flew to Las Vegas from Connecticut hoping to testify about the horrific experience of being wed at the Garden of Love.

Police, on orders from the mayor, rounded up two ministers and drove them to City Hall. After Mayor Oscar Goodman read them their rights, the two said they wanted to see a lawyer.

"Ministers who need lawyers," said Goodman, jokingly but incredulous.

There were tears during intermission -- stories of beatings and of conspiracies by one group of wedding chapels to get rid of a competitor.

And it turns out that there might be dozens, if not hundreds of couples whose spring marriages in Las Vegas might be null and void.

An elderly man in the audience of the City Council on Oct. 17 appeared to relish the action.

"I thought the mob left town," he said. "These chapels, they're something else."

In a city that can honestly say it has seen everything, this was something else.

All of it began five years ago.

That's when the Garden of Love came into being, and the battle for customers, according to its competitors, began to stain the rose-petaled and faux-Elvis world of the Las Vegas wedding industry.

Competitors have alleged that Garden of Love hand billers have gone far beyond the pale in trying to muscle aside other chapels' representatives in seeking to snare couples walking out of the Clark County Marriage Bureau to use their chapel. Cut rates, free limo rides, cheapo bouquets -- everything but a free bride or groom is offered as part of the sales pitches.

And when one chapel gets a customer over another chapel, fights have ensued. One Garden of Love employee was charged with attempted murder this year after allegedly attacking another chapel employee with a knife. Charges were dropped when the accuser didn't show up for court.

In early September, Metro Police arrested Garden of Love co-owner Cheryl Luell and an employee on allegations that they stole more than $20,000 worth of garment-imprinting equipment from a vendor at the Sands Expo & Convention Center.

And Bellagio LLC and Mirage Resorts Inc. filed a federal lawsuit this year accusing Luell of trademark violations for allegedly telling customers that the Garden of Love has a business arrangement with the resorts, which it does not.

Joe Schoenmann can be reached at joe.schoenmann(at)lasvegassun.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com