Miles from Strip glitz, old casino’s regulars celebrate

Erin Neff

Monday, Jan. 3, 2000 | 9:57 a.m.

In other time zones the new century was welcomed with fireworks, concerts and a mindful eye out for signs of computer glitches.

Yet as midnight neared at a building full of downtowners gathered for their nightly share of $1 blackjack, penny slots and bingo at the Western hotel-casino, the Happy New Year hats could just have easily read 1971 as 2000.

The fireworks here happened when security guards, pepper spray in hand, rushed across Fremont Street to break up separate fights just after 10 p.m. in the poverty-stricken Ninth Street neighborhood.

Pepper Martin, 82, performed "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" on his harmonica for the night's entertainment to a singing and singular audience of Dotty Deschene in a corner booth of the hotel's luncheonette.

And Y2K glitches were summarily dismissed by a snowbird from Minnesota, who walked outside at midnight, looked up and down the street and huffed, "Geez. The lights didn't even go out."

Year 2000 hype brought top-flight entertainment and $300 minimum craps games to the marble-floored casinos miles south on the Strip. But the Western made up for its wooden-floored lack of glitz and its dime roulette game with scenes from a more casual and caring Las Vegas.

"We're not stuffy," said blue-jeaned casino manager Tony Alessandro, drawing in on his cigarette and giving a nod to a 21 dealer asking for permission to "Change in $20."

"We don't care how much money you've been spending here," Alessandro said. "We don't have a (player's) club card. If you've been here for awhile and you ask, yeah, we'll give you something to eat."

First you might have to get past Janice. She tells counter customers who ask if she'll resolve to be nice in the coming year: "I don't have to be nice, it's not 2000 yet."

But even Janice gives a huge smile to familiar faces buying either the baked chicken or deep fried fish dinners for $3.95 and offers a double helping of rice to a customer who dislikes peas.

Martin -- a World War II vet with a bayonet scar from hand-to-hand combat in the Battle of the Bulge -- is holding court in the corner. His post-war jobs as a professional prizefighter and waiter belie his accomplishments on the mouth harp he taps between songs to remove saliva from the reeds.

Five men quietly speak Russian and pass a bag of potato chips around a nearby table as Martin introduces "Silent Night" and then "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"

"Jingle Bells" ends, and the Russians respond with some obligatory applause before Martin abruptly departs for the adjacent bingo parlor and its 7 p.m. opening game.

Pioneer Southern Nevada hotel-casino owner Jackie Gaughan opened the Western in 1971 as a hotel and bingo hall, and although the subsequent decades have seen the slot machines and keno lounge encroach into the bingo space, the parlor remains the heart of the casino.

That's where Renee and Joe White first locked eyes in 1992 -- and where they spent this, their eighth married New Year's Eve, daubing bingo cards across from each other with speed and special effect sounds.

"G-52," bingo clerk Margie Colon calls into the microphone.

"All right, I'll take it," Joe White says, adding, "Zoom, da ding" for emphasis as he marks his card.

Renee, 68, who found her fourth husband in Joe, smiles as he cheers another number by shimmying his upper body and singing, "Twist, like you did last summer, baby."

Sherrie Breen has worked at the Western since 1973, working her way up from change girl to bingo manager. To her, the hotel staff and customers are a second family who ask about each other's children and spouses and who console the death of friends.

"There's one lady who comes in here every day for every session," Breen said. "She's in her mid-80s. If she doesn't show up, we have her phone number, and we want to know why."

Down one of the long buffet tables, John Crossley loses track of his card for a minute when he spots a reporter and photographer he believes to be from the "Bingo Bugle."

Crossley admits he's not a huge bingo fan, but he accompanies his friend, Barbara Hansen, to bingo sessions each day.

"She likes it," Crossley says, as Hansen responds to a cry of bingo from across the room with a loud "Son of a bitch!"

Two other friends find each other each weekend at the blackjack table, and another pair join up each month in the keno lounge.

Clifford Osteen, 84, and his 97-year-old friend Austin Thomas -- both from Long Beach, Calif. -- spent New Year's Eve marking keno cards. Osteen peered through black binoculars to read the electronic display of numbers about 20 feet in front of him while Thomas slowly pushed his walker to the clerk before each new game.

"We come down here together every month," Osteen said. "We stay here. The rooms are cheap, and they give us free meals."

With its $16-a-night rooms and its Woolworth-style lunch counter, the Western's no-frills style brings a welcome throw-back attitude to return customers and day laborers who find solace in its boxy walls.

Alessandro said his staff is full of longtime and loyal employees, like Sylvia McElrath, who has been serving cocktails at the Western for 28 years.

"It's a comfortable shop," said McElrath, whose smile beams like a high school cheerleader's, but whose eyes show a bit of her many decades at their edges. "The customers are mostly hometown people. It's more like a family here."

As the final minutes of 1999 ticked down, two tabletop fountains were filled with pink champagne, and staff passed out hats, tiaras, horns and leis to everyone in the casino.

The large television in the bar switched to a shot of the Strip with 10 seconds to go, giving the drinkers a jump-start on their countdown to the one offered by a Western employee with a microphone, who was going by her watch. A chorus of 4-3-2-1 drowned out the high-pitched 8-7-6-5 at the other end of the casino -- with both miraculously settling on "Happy New Year" at the same time.

Security guards hugged cocktail waitresses, and patrons tooted horns and sipped champagne. A woman rolled her wheelchair away from the bar singing "Auld Lang Syne" to herself.

Ten minutes later, the hats were the only remaining symbol that this night was a little different at the Western.

"It's the same people, same thing everyday," security guard Mark Haythorne said. "Day in, day out. No different."

And for the hundreds who marked the passing of another year at the Western Friday night, that isn't such a bad thing.

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