Ladies' night foe Steve Horner takes on Las Vegas... and lives to tell about it

Steve Horner.

Local bar owners breathed a sigh of relief when Steve Horner left town taking the discrimination charges he'd filed against them for offering ladies' night deals with him. Denver's gain is Las Vegas's loss: Sin City is the current focus of Horner's campaign. But rather than earning him a pair of cement galoshes, Horner's new jihad got him a full profile in the Las Vegas Review-Journal yesterday.

Reporter Mike Blasky captured all the important points of the Horner saga, which I first reported in 2007's "Ladies Plight:" the women who've done him wrong (many, ranging from his ex-wife to assorted bureaucrats), the start of his campaign against ladies' night (one sad evening in 1992 when, as a single and broke father, he needed a beer -- but found that deals were only being offered women at the new Mall of the Americas), his travels around the country and his anti-ladies' night efforts at each stop, his comparing himself to both Rosa Parks and Jesus, his appearance on the Daily Show, his books promoted on the Steve Horner website, his broken engagement that started... and ended... in Denver.

And Blasky also tracked down many members of Horner's family, including the two sons he raised who moved to Arizona to be close to their mother: "I love my kids," Horner told Blasky. "I just don't hear from these guys anymore."

Neither does he hear much from his five brothers, one of whom ran for governor of Minnesota last year. "I've been left out here on this trail," Horner explained. "My family has deserted me, and I think it's through the influences of the women and daughters in the family."

But he still has his cause. After moving to St. George, Utah, Horner set his sights on Las Vegas, where last summer he filed complaints with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission against six casinos -- including the MGM Grand, the Hard Rock Hotel, the Mirage and Tropicana -- for not letting him into their clubs and pool parties for the discounted ladies' rates. Five of the casinos ignored him, Blasky reports, but Horner thinks the Tropicana might be willing to settle.

Although law that went into effect October 1 in Nevada protects ladies' night deals -- and the businesses that choose to offer them, Horner is out to change that. "The state has prostituted itself," he told Blasky. "Everyone has rights, except when money is involved."

And Denver bar owners will toast this bit of news: Horner says he's in Las Vegas for the long haul. "It's like a drug. I can't stop it," he said. "Truly, it gives me great pleasure, a great high, because I know I'm doing the right thing."

Not surprisingly, the comments about Horner are already flying on the Review-Journal website. RenoReader sums it up with this:

Why is the paper giving this twit attention? Let him slink off into the night with the other bottom dwellers where he belongs. Seriously, what a joke. The irony is that ladies night promos aren't even designed to benefit women! Clubs let the ladies in for free so guys will come into the club and spend money (on themselves and the ladies).

More from our Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: "Newt Gingrich's plan for letting some illegal aliens become citizens got its start in Colorado."