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- <text id=90TT3153>
- <title>
- Nov. 26, 1990: American Notes:Auctions
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Nov. 26, 1990 The Junk Mail Explosion!
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 39
- American Notes
- AUCTIONS
- Stripped Bare
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> More than a thousand bargain hunters and curiosity seekers
- showed up under a bright orange-and-white tent 10 miles outside
- Reno last week to watch the ultimate strip show at the
- legendary Mustang Ranch. The Internal Revenue Service put the
- 330-acre establishment, Nevada's oldest legal bordello, on the
- auction block when its previous owners failed to pay $13
- million in back taxes. Going, going, gone--for $1.5 million--was the 104-room hot-sheet palace itself (actually two pink
- stucco buildings with a guard tower). Also gaveled off, for
- about $500,000 more, were such appointments as couches, lamps,
- nude paintings and condoms.
- </p>
- <p> Flamboyant ex-owner Joe Conforte denied having secretly
- placed the winning bid, entered by a lawyer who is the brother
- of Conforte's attorney. Among those who had expressed interest
- in the property were a nursing home and a halfway house.
- Whoever winds up with the Mustang may lack one key element: the
- special use permit that allowed it to operate as a brothel.
- Storey County yanked the license last month and may not give
- it back.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-