Newport's "Sin City" roots run deep.
They go beyond the 1980s strip clubs like The Mouse Trap and La Madame's. They go further back than 1950s casinos such as The Beverly Hills Club and The Tropicana. They even reach past the 1930s "break-out" gambling joints located among rundown West End houses.
They go as far back as Newport's founding, when U.S. Army soldiers were housed at the Newport Arsenal during the early 1800s and gambling, liquor and prostitution gravitated around the barracks near the Licking River.
"Sin City is part of Newport's long-time history," says Jim Claypool, a history professor at Northern Kentucky University. "People are still digging up old liquor bottles all over the place in the West End."
New residents are surprised to hear about Newport's past as a Midwest Las Vegas. It seems so far removed from how things are today.
"I had no idea that the Mafia was so big in Newport," says Andrea Hill, a 24-year-old artist living in Mansion Hill. "I've heard a lot of crazy stories."
Old-timers still talk about Newport's sinful past. The stories are just too colorful to forget.
Newport's history is one of economic progress. The fall of prohibition forced bootleggers to look toward gambling. Sleazy West End "break-out" clubs were soon replaced by respectable gambling halls after Pete Schmidt bought a rundown Monmouth Street hotel in 1932 and converted it into the Glenn Hotel and Rendezvous, with a gaming parlor located behind a first-floor restaurant.
The gaming business was good, and Schmidt opened the Beverly Hills Club in 1935, with a glitzy expansion in 1937. Celebrity performers such as Jimmy Durante and Frank Sinatra could be found in the Beverly Hills' circular bar, elegant restaurant and backroom gambling parlors.
The Cleveland Syndicate had operated in Newport since the 1930s, and they fought to control the city's gambling businesses. The mob prospered. Soon, seven casinos and eight gambling halls were doing business throughout Newport. Prostitution was rampant throughout the West End, with 21 women alone working at Vivian Schultz's brothel at 21 W. Third St.
The Merchants Club operated on 15 E. Fourth St., just around the corner from the police station. Drug trafficking was limited to African-American clubs such as the Alibi, Golden Lounge and Rocket.
Schmidt, fighting to remain independent from the Cleveland mob, spent $700,000 and built the Glenn Schmidt Playtorium at 18 E. Fifth St., a combination bar, restaurant, bowling alley and gambling parlor that's the current location of The Syndicate restaurant.
Payoffs to police and key officials -- up to $1 million annually in the late 1950s -- kept the law at bay. Gamblers patronized local retailers. People still talk about the days when Monmouth Street was busy day and night. The high-rollers had money to spend. More importantly, nobody bothered them.
"I was on my way to Newport one night," Claypool says. "There was a blue law, no liquor sales after 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning. And I remember this liquor store right next to the courthouse was open at 4 a.m. There was a line of cars from Cincinnati, and Newport police were conducting traffic.
"Everyone was on the payroll at that time. Imagine: The police were directing traffic for people breaking the law."
But time wouldn't be on the mob's side. Look and Time magazines ran stories that spotlighted Newport's illegal operations. Hank Messick, a reporter for The Louisville Courier-Journal, covered the corruption on a regular basis.
Public reform groups such as the Social Action Committee began raising funds to oust crooked politicians. Campbell County business leaders organized the Committee of 500 in 1961. Their reform candidate for county sheriff was George Ratterman, a devoted family man and ex-quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.
The syndicate's desperation for survival reached new lows when Ratterman was drugged at Cincinnati's Terrace Hilton Hotel and posed with his pants pulled down with a Tropicana Club stripper named April Flowers. Ratterman was arrested by a detective on the payroll for a morals violation as well as disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The charges didn't stick, though, and in 1961 Ratterman rode a wave of public support (everywhere except Newport) into county office.
An Oct. 6, 1960, visit from presidential candidate John F. Kennedy foreshadowed the end of the Newport rackets. After winning the election, Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert, as Attorney General. The U.S. Justice Department would hit Newport hard.
Licenses for betting dried up and mob-operated gambling halls shut down throughout the 1960s. Independently owned strip clubs, go-go bars and porn theaters took their place. It would take a series of new crusades against these adult businesses 20 years later to rid Monmouth Street of its XXX image.
Today, only three strip clubs remain on Monmouth Street -- The Brass Ass, The Brass Bull and The Centerfold Lounge. These adult bars are a shadow of their former selves. They're worn, weary and frayed around the edges, and, like many downtown Newport businesses, they're fighting a losing battle against competition from the suburbs.
