Pahrump, Nevada- Looking out the front door of the Victory Christian Center, Pastors Ken and Missy Burns can’t help but notice just across the street the white turrets and red spires of Nye County’s most controversial new business.

“But we didn’t get really upset,” said Ken Burns, “until we saw those signs.”

They are not alone. Since the all-nude Kingdom Gentleman’s Club opened June 9 on Pahrump’s main drag, local officials have fielded hundreds of complaints about the pictures of scantily clad women that cover the outside of the building.

To some, the suggestive signs are merely the latest affront by the strip club’s proprietor, longtime Nye County brothel owner Joe Richards.

But unlike previous controversies involving Richards, including his much-debated brothel billboards along Pahrump’s busiest streets, his actions this time could help spell the end of legal prostitution in Nye County.

On Tuesday, the Nye County Commission will consider two items related to the county ordinance that permits brothels. The first item, placed on the agenda by Commission Chairman Henry Neth, would launch the process of amending or repealing the brothel ordinance.

The second item, requested by Commissioner Candice Trummell, would put the future of the brothel industry in the hands of voters.

“That’s the position I have had all along,” Trummell said. “All I would ever support is it going on the ballot for an advisory vote from the people before I would ever take action to make it illegal.”

Neth declined to single out Richards or the Kingdom as the reason behind his push to abolish brothels in Nye County. Instead, he blamed a string of provocative moves by several local brothel owners, including a planned billboard campaign by Sheri’s Ranch and print advertisements for the Chicken Ranch in several Las Vegas alternative weeklies last year.

“I just don’t get it why they want to keep pushing the edges of the ordinance when they are an at-will industry,” Neth said. “Brothel licenses are privilege licenses. There are no inherent rights that come with the issuance of them.”

Commissioner Patricia Cox also cited a plan floated several years ago to turn the Chicken Ranch into a publicly traded company with a listing on NASDAQ. She said such high-profile activities by brothel owners have begun to hurt economic development efforts in Pahrump.

“The brothels used to be out of sight, out of mind. That’s not the case anymore,” she said. “My constituents are telling me, `We don’t want to be known as a prostitute county.’ The revenue isn’t worth the embarrassment we get.”

The seven brothels licensed by the county pay about $182,000 a year in fees, or roughly seven-tenths of one percent of the county’s annual general fund budget.

If the county attempts to close down the multimillion-dollar-per-year brothel industry, lawsuits are almost certain to follow. Neth harbors no illusions about that. “This is a battle that will go all the way to the Supreme Court,” he said.

In the meantime, some local residents will try an alternate form of persuasion: a prayer vigil in front of the Kingdom at 7 tonight.

Event organizer Shirley Trummell, Commissioner Trummell’s mother, said the vigil is meant to be a peaceful, Christian gathering. “People should not go on his property. People should not harass him. People should pray for him, because he needs it,” she said.

Shirley Trummell and her husband, pastor and former school board member Ron Trummell, have locked horns with Richards before over the brothel issue. The last time it happened, Richards spent the next five or six years attacking them in the weekly newspaper he owned at the time, Shirley Trummell said.

She expects some sort of retribution this time, too, but she is also hoping for a little more support. “This is not a Christian issue, this is a community issue,” she said. “The pictures are an outrage.”

Though the vigil is scheduled at the same time as tonight’s service at Victory Christian Center, Burns said he and some of the church’s 100 members might walk across the street to take part.

“I feel Joe Richards does not have the interests of the community and the county at heart,” Burns said. “He’s a pretty smart man, he’s got a lot of money, and he’s got a good lawyer. He’s pretty much thumbing his nose at the whole community.”

“It’s atrocious,” said Dolores Molina as she gassed up her car Tuesday at the Mobile station across from what she derisively refers to as the “castle of love.”

“I don’t think families will come here. Would you?”

But not everyone objects to the Kingdom, the brothels or the billboards.

“We have other much bigger issues to worry about than whether there is someone inside there taking off their clothes,” said Belinda Hendrickson, an eight-year resident of Pahrump who drives past the strip club twice a day during her commute to Las Vegas. “It’s not causing trouble. It brings in taxes. Leave it alone.”

Hendrickson blames the recent uproar on “newbies from other places who didn’t do their homework” before they moved to Pahrump. “That’s like moving to Paris and expecting everybody to speak English,” she said.

Rich Brown knew the brothels were there when he retired to Pahrump from Illinois two years ago.

“They didn’t bother me then and they don’t bother me now,” he said. “It bothers me that Neth is trying to inflict his own morals on us. I don’t want to do things his way.”

Brown added that the commissioners had plenty of time to establish rules restricting businesses such as the Kingdom, but they failed to do so in time.

Nye County has no rules governing strip clubs. The county’s comprehensive zoning ordinance for the unincorporated town of Pahrump is only a few weeks old and does not address sexually oriented businesses.

Richards hung up when contacted for comment. Messages left for him were not returned.

In a recent interview with the Pahrump Valley Times, Richards said he planned to build his brothel at the end of Homestead Road, with or without permission from county officials. “I’ve got ’em by the balls,” Richards told the twice-weekly newspaper, which like the Review-Journal is published by the Stephens Media Group. “They can’t win and they know it, so (expletive) them.”

Neth’s reply: “He will not open a brothel without a proper license or he will go to jail.”

The ongoing brothel debate could complicate efforts to sell the Chicken Ranch, which went on the market June 7 for $6.95 million.

“Let me put it this way: It wasn’t good news,” said Bob Fisher, whose California public relations firm has represented the Chicken Ranch since 1982. “The timing of that couldn’t be worse.”

Even so, Chicken Ranch owner Kenneth Green said there has been “significant interest” from potential buyers.

It is Green’s hope that brothel owners can sit down with county officials and work out their differences.

“The Chicken Ranch and Sheri’s have been good citizens in Pahrump,” Green said. “We pay our taxes, we pay our fees, we contribute to charitable causes. We are a significant contributor to the community.”

Sheri’s Ranch officials could not be reached for comment, but they have perhaps the most to lose should Nye County strike down the brothel ordinance. Over the past few years, Sheri’s Ranch has made several million dollars worth of improvements, including a new hotel and spa facility that will be unveiled during the brothel’s annual summer party July 24.