Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Little Las Vegas’ outside Cincinnati seeks new image

NEWPORT, Ky. -- Loudspeakers blaring race results, blackjack dealers and nude dancers gyrating to the throbbing beat of strip joint music were once common sights and sounds in this city across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

Illegal gambling, prostitution and even murders for hire played such a vivid role in Newport's history that it was labeled "Sin City." But community leaders say the city has shed its sinful image forever and is poised for rebirth as a family-oriented entertainment center.

"Newport has always been known for entertainment," said city Economic Development Director Patricia Wingo. "But now it's a different type."

Excited boosters of the "new" entertainment point to the $40 million Newport Aquarium with its steady stream of visitors and an adjacent multimillion-dollar retail and restaurant complex under construction along the riverfront. The complex expected to be completed by late 2001 will feature an IMAX Theater, a 20-screen cinema and a 200-room hotel.

A downtown park and a 1,000-foot Millennium Monument tower that would highlight the existing World Peace Bell are also on the drawing boards, along with a pedestrian bridge that would link Newport with downtown Cincinnati and serve as a site for festivals.

City officials also are planning for jazz and blues clubs, specialty retail shops, restaurants and apartments to develop south from the riverfront and up Monmouth Street, the city's main thoroughfare.

By the end of next year, city officials hope to have completed new sidewalks, street lights and other cosmetic improvements to the main street. The city hopes the improvements will help the small retail shops and restaurants that have struggled to hang on amid the dilapidated, vacant storefronts and abandoned adult entertainment clubs that serve as reminders of Newport's checkered past.

"For years, Newport was the example of what not to do," said City Manager Phil Ciafardini, a Newport native. "Now it is an example not only of what to do, but how to do it."

The entertainment most often identified with Newport's past was illegal gambling, which flourished mostly under the control of organized crime in the 1940s and 1950s with fancy clubs and casinos such as the Flamingo and the Tropicana.

"It wasn't unusual to see stars like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe in Newport, when they came to gamble and even entertain at clubs," said 55-year-old Marvin Polinsky, who runs Saul's Value Store, a menswear shop started by his father more than 60 years ago. "People just took the gambling for granted then. There were even slot machines in groceries and chili parlors."

Gambling proved a gold mine for a lot of people, including Monmouth Street retailers who geared their hours to accommodate the free-spending club employees.

"People weren't afraid to walk the streets any time of the night," said Polinsky. "Any violence was kept within the confines of the gambling underworld. It didn't affect the regular Joe."

Edwin Rayburn, the former owner of Ebert's Meats, which has operated for more than 100 years, also recalls that era with nostalgia.

"You didn't have to gamble," said Rayburn, 69. "You could go to the clubs, have fine meals and watch quality shows," he said. "People came from all over the country. It was like a little Las Vegas."

Bribes and payoffs persuaded police and politicians to look the other way, while the city swelled to 30,000 people and prospered from the additional payroll taxes and licensing fees.

But not everyone was happy with a hometown known for gambling and vice. Local reform efforts combined with a federal crackdown on organized crime succeeded in driving the gambling out of Newport in the 1960s. Independently owned strip clubs and X-rated pornographic theaters quickly took its place.

"In the next two decades, Newport's image got even worse," said Ciafardini.

Gambling was illegal, but it had fueled the economy and club owners had kept a tight rein on other crime. As the city's business district and its economy declined, Newport began to take on a seedy look, said the city manager.

By the mid-1980s, city officials were fed up with the nearly 20 adult entertainment businesses and the declining economy. They began adopting ordinances that eventually whittled the number of those businesses to three.

"I never took it personally," said Tom Chambers, a former adult club owner who now owns the Captain's Cove Bar and Grill near the riverfront. "I didn't want to be one of the casualties, but I understood they were doing it in the best interest of the city."

The 3.5-square-mile city of 18,000 people still has hurdles to clear as it moves ahead with redevelopment.

Polinsky and other Monmouth Street retailers worry that they may be left out if development fails to spread beyond the riverfront and if public housing is relocated to the business district.

Susan McIntosh, a 22-year-old widow who lives in Newport's public housing with her 5-year-old son Andrew, worries that she may be forced to move to an apartment she can't afford if the city succeeds in getting federal funds to relocate public housing from its valuable riverfront site.

Historic preservationists worry that too many old buildings will be sacrificed.

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