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Then the city of Vegas is waiting for a gangster like you! ⚠️ It's always a crime. There's a strip club in the Red Light District that's always open & free! Mobster Bugsy Siegel opens the glitzy Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 26, 1946. Well-known singer and comedian Jimmy Durante headlined the night's entertainment, with music.
Published 2:17 PM EDT Apr 28, 2015
Bookmaking. Depravities of the flesh. Corruption. Enough of this activity and a town will earn the nickname 'Sin City.'
But the place in question is not Las Vegas or Tijuana.
It was Newport.
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Newport, known as America's Playground from the 1920s to 1960s, served as stomping grounds for celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. It was also a place U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy condemned in 1963 as 'known nationally for wide-open gambling and prostitution,' and where 'law enforcement was deeply corrupted.'
Newport has cultivated a reputation in recent years as a river-city gem.
Yet, no matter how much you whitewash the present, the stains of the past remain.
'The law is keeping you down'
The shenanigans began when the U.S. government stationed soldiers to guard the Newport area in the early 19th century.
'Anytime you have a lot of men congregated, they will be looking for entertainment venues,' says Paul Tenkotte, history professor and director of the Center for Public History at Northern Kentucky University.
Where an Army goes, women follow. Prostitution houses sprung up. To front these bordellos, bars set up shop.
The military personnel were all from someplace else, making up a core of Newport residents that were, in effect, outsiders. But you didn't have to be from someplace else to be an outsider here.
'Newport had a large base of Catholics,' says Jerry Gels, creator of 'Before Vegas,' a documentary on Newport's past. 'There was an anti-immigration, anti-Catholic sentiment in the nation, with crimes committed against these groups. People in Newport began to resent authority.'
Then came this: The Volstead Act, which banned the production, transportation and sale of alcohol in the United States, passed in 1919.
'The region held its drink as a necessity,' Tenkotte says. 'Prohibition made many people criminals.'
George Remus, a Chicago lawyer and pharmacist turned rumrunner, made Cincinnati a hotbed for bootlegging during Prohibition.
But while the Queen City was in charge of distribution of the contraband, bootleggers needed a place to make the booze.
This place was Newport.
'Roughly 10 percent of Newport's economics were tied to alcohol,' Gels says of the 1920s. 'Prohibition didn't just take away their enjoyment. It took away their livelihood.'
Gels sums the feeling of the day: 'Why pay attention to the law when the law is keeping you down?'
'The house always won'
When Prohibition ended in 1933, bootleggers had to find new work. They turned to gambling.
'Because of Remus' influence, you had a businessman-like approach in the area to illegal activity,' Gels says. 'These weren't thugs.'
The first gambling houses appealed to the upper class. Getting a chance to make some fast money might have been the catalyst to come to Newport, but it wasn't the sole entertainment.
'It wasn't just about gambling,' Tenkotte notes. '(Patrons) were interested in a nice dinner, fine acts from Hollywood.'
It was a new model for gambling. Establishments that offered these services were called 'carpet joints.'
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The Beverly Hills Club was the most popular of all the parlors; Dean Martin was once employed as a blackjack dealer there. Other popular casinos were the Flamingo and the Tropicana Club.
Then there were the 'bust-outs.'
'Unlike the carpet joints, which tried to hold fair games, these places, through drugs or drink, you were 'busted' before you gambled,' Tenkotte says. The house always, always, always won.'
And Newport won, too.
'By day, the town's population was around 30,000,' Tenkotte says. 'At night, it was close to 100,000.'
The Mafia comes to town
Gambling, pirated liquor, cathouses. It was the holy trinity of American crime.
'Newport's unregulated territory made it a perfect target for mafia rule,' Tenkotte says. 'There was nothing in the way to stop organized crime.'
The Cleveland Syndicate, named for their operations in Lake Erie, were considered the most dangerous of the bunch. They made their presence known with their acquisition of Coney Island Parkway. Or rather, how they acquired the parkway. Instead of bribing or harassing or finessing their way in, the mob simply killed the track's owner outside a New Jersey restaurant in the fall of 1935. A week later, Cleveland Syndicate took over the turf and renamed it River Downs, which is now Belterra Park.
Or there was the time they went after the Beverly Hills Club. After years of turning down the group's offer as partners, club owner Peter Schmidt – an associate of Remus – saw the Cleveland Four burn down his venue in 1937.
Though Schmidt rebuilt his place, he ultimately sold his club to the Syndicate at a reduced price under threat.
'The syndicate had enforcers,' Tenkotte says. 'They made sure, in their eyes, things never got out of their hands.'
'Don't know nothing about it.'
There's evidence to suggest that some Newport police officers were on the take.
'It's not necessarily that every cop was on the take,' Gels says. 'But they understood the impact gambling had on the socioeconomics of the area.'
'It takes a majority to make these types of occupations happen,' Tenkotte says.
Take the case of George Ratterman. A former University of Notre Dame quarterback, Ratterman ran for Campbell County sheriff on a platform of reform.
So when Ratterman was later found drugged and in bed with a stripper, and detective Pat Ciafardini just 'happened' to have a photographer with him when he found the candidate at the Tropicana, no one was surprised.
Ciafardini was indicted for conspiracy, with fellow police offers testifying that Ciafardini asked them to lie and cover up for him. During this trial, Newport's gambling rings came into play.
What happened to Ciafardini? He became chief of Newport detectives.
Paying for the past
Following a stream of national exposés and reform movements in the 1960s, Newport began to clean up its act. Police reorganization swept out the underbelly.
Also adding to this end: the evolution of transportation.
'Air travel safety vastly improved,' Gels says. 'People could head to more exotic locations to get their fill of vices.'
The Newport mobs moved west.
It's no coincidence that 'the first nine casinos in Vegas all had Newport ties in ownership,' Gels says.
By the early 1980s, most of the seedy recreation had moved on. But the damage to the area's reputation did not.
'The rest of the state viewed the area as a den of iniquity,' Tenkotte says. 'Often Northern Kentucky residents of the area have a victim mentality, but the respect was lost from this lawless period.'
Call it penance for a century of sin.
(Note: the original article stated the Coney Island Parkway owner died in Newport. He was murdered in New Jersey.)
Published 2:17 PM EDT Apr 28, 2015
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