Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

Real estate tour highlights downtown digs

It was more than a bit ironic that the "Taste of Downtown" tour's HQ was in the cavernous space where the motorsports-themed Race Rock restaurant once was, and right across the street from Neonopolis, another stumble on downtown's sometimes rocky path to revitalization. Held Friday, the city-sponsored event took real estate professionals on both walking and bus tours of several quadrants of downtown, hoping to pique interest in biz opportunities. By most accounts, the event was a success: More than 500 real estate brokers, developers and other professionals RSVP'd for the event, says Douglas Lein with the city's economic development and marketing division. "We cut it off at 500," he says. "That was 200 more than we had expected. The whole thing's been phenomenal. We've got a lot of interest in businesses that want more urban, streetside involvement, places where they could live, trade and work." The tour was the second in a series of business development tours put on the by the city, which was rounded out by volunteers from civic groups and private companies.

So, yeah, hurray downtown. Perhaps most interestingly, many who had already put down stakes in the area showed up, either to help promote the place or reassure themselves that they'd made the right decision. One was Scott Bell, who says his Financial Power Group is behind a development that will replace the Golden Inn on Las Vegas Boulevard. While he's still waiting on licensing, he says he expects to break ground on the $50 million project in about three months, which will be a mix of retail and high-rise condos. "Just riding around the bus, I can see what they're trying to do here, something like Pioneer Square in Seattle or the Gaslamp District in San Diego." As with many developers, affordability was a factor in coming to the older part of town. "We certainly couldn't afford to do this on the Strip," he says.

Further east, Gary Sax has plans to open Take 1, a Hollywood-themed nightclub and restaurant at Seventh and Fremont streets. The 9,000-square-foot club will feature food, live music and a curious hybrid of karaoke and amateur acting called "movieoke." "You'll be able to act out scenes from your favorite movie in front of a screen," Sax says. Live bands themed after particular decades will complete the entertainment roster. What drew Sax downtown? The price was right. "The place was kind of offered to us," he says, "but the fact that there's so much energy being put on the redevelopment of downtown is definitely promising." Put on your movieoke shoes; Sax hopes to open Take 1 July 4 weekend.--AK

Embrace the aging

of First Friday

Friday's First Friday event in the downtown arts district--also known as where you go to get a secondhand mattress or muffler repair work--was a big success, with loads of people checking out art exhibits, listening to throbbing, overwrought dance music and chowing down on Quizno's subs at the sandwich shop's handy street kiosk.

But the careful observer couldn't help but notice that the upscale oldsters have discovered First Friday. Yes, people of all ages are welcome at First Friday, but it all started as a hippy-dippy happening for the young ones. Now there are signs that First Friday is going mainstream. The oldsters--say, those 45 and beyond--are leaving their gate-shrouded McMansions in Summerlin and Green Valley and heading out on the highway to slum a bit before Celine's 10 o'clock show.

It's all good, though, because it's the upscale oldsters who actually buy art. That's what the artists want, see, is for people to buy their art so they can stop eating variety-box snack crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rest of us can look and admire (or not) all day long, but unless somebody's buying, this spiritually uplifting communal gathering ain't going anywhere.

So, let us embrace the oldsters with their velour shirts, shiny shoes and gray-spackled coiffures. Make way for their walkers. Don't piss them off with your disestablishmentarianism. Give them space to breathe in the wonderful art and spend, spend, spend!

The rest of us can go to Dino's and get tanked up.--GS

`Skate and destroy'

taken too literally

The city giveth, and the city taketh away...skateparks, that is. While the city's gone on a skatepark-building spree in recent years, the fun hit a speed bump last month when the city announced it was going to pack up Patriot Park and move it away. Sure, cry "skateboarding is not a crime" till you're blue in the kneepads, but the problems at Patriot Park skateboarding facility near Craig Road and Decatur Boulevard got to the point where the city decided to pull the plug. In about two weeks, the city will start moving the portable skate ramps from Patriot Park to Mountain Ridge Park, near U.S. 95 and Durango Drive.

"Unfortunately, it's the same old story about a couple of bad apples ruining it for the whole bunch," says City Councilman Michael Mack, who, despite his own round of ethics woes, gets props for overseeing the construction of at least three skateparks in his ward. "We had problems with vandalism, neighborhood problems and harassment to nearby elementary students. It's a good neighborhood, but unfortunately there wasn't a lot of good skateboarder etiquette." He says there was also an episode where a dog was poisoned and killed.

The park's wood and metal ramps will be moved to Mountain Ridge Park, where they'll replace a roller hockey rink that's not used very much. Mack hopes the fact that Mountain Ridge Park is slated to be buffered by commercial buildings and not homes will provide a buffer that'll dampen the spirit of any kids who take the phrase "skate and destroy" a little too literally.--AK

Clocker Bob isn't horsing

around with new e-book

For the past three decades or so, Robert J. Kachur has been known as "Clocker Bob," which--no matter what Spike Lee fans may tell you--does not mean that he was ever a drug dealer on the mean streets outside New York's shadiest housing projects. Rather, he spent his mornings at the race track, observing equine workouts with stopwatch and binoculars in hand. He'd then turn these observations into evaluations that would run in the weekly Southern California horse-racing rags.

And to hear him tell it, he was pretty damn good at it, too. In fact, with more than 20 years in the business, he served an unusually long tenure as a clocker--at least partially because he encouraged handicappers to make their own informed decisions.

"I always tell people to gamble off what they see in the race," Bob says. "Otherwise, they might end up betting on what I call a `morning glory'--a horse that's fast in the morning but a dog when it's in the pack."

And now he's turned this insider knowledge into an e-book, which can be read in its entirety at ClockerBob.com. Unlike horse racing analysts who spend their days crunching numbers in the luxury boxes, Clocker Bob has put in his time on the dirt, and it's given him a singular perspective on the sport as a whole.

"I slept in barns," says Bob, who now spends his afternoons bouncing around local sports books. "I flew with the horses on the plane. I was a hot walker. I was a night watchman. I was a clocker and a gambler. That's what I think is really unique about my book. It takes you inside the game."--NB

Rare breeds make

home at Rancho zoo

The Southern Nevada Zoological Park acquired some noteworthy new residents this month: a critically endangered Chinese alligator, a rare Indo-Chinese tiger and a pair of fossas on permanent loan from the San Diego Zoo.

Jubilant zoo director Pat Dingle calls the animals' acquisition "the most significant news" in the zoo's 22-year history. "These are some major home runs for Las Vegas."

So how did the modest three-acre zoo on North Rancho Drive get these exotic animals? And what exactly is a fossa, anyway? Turns out the San Diego Zoo had an extra pair of fossas--members of the mongoose family that look like a freaky fusion of cat and dog--just lying around. Dingle built an 80-foot-long jungle habitat for them, San Diego's curator of mammals deemed it acceptable, and the dudes moved into their new digs.

The Cincinnati Zoo donated the Indo-Chinese tiger after learning about last year's old-age death of Dingle's other tiger. And the Southern Nevada zoo is now taking part in the Species Survival Plan for Chinese alligators. "This is the direction we're going in now," says Dingle. "No sissy stuff."--LC

`Edgy' dust ads resume

Las Vegas television viewers will have their worst fears realized this week when Clark County unveils its new "Dusty the Dusthole" ad.

The new installment features a group of coughing, wheezing citizens and a reporter explaining the connection between a broken desert crust and the valley's dust problem. Then Dusty waves to viewers, revs his engine and barrels across the desert, leaving a plume of, you guessed it, dust in his wake.

This is all well and good, but one of the main causes of dust is development, not some whiskey tango in a truck rolling across the desert. The county calls this "edgy." Truly edgy would be for the Dusty character to be a home builder who doesn't want to pay for a water truck.--GS