Former Dunes employees reunite for magic carpet ride into past

They tell me the town has changed and you can't get there from here.

You know, back to the old Las Vegas.

Dizzy dice dreamers and suckers for neon nostalgia have tried, but eventually we all scuffle to the corner of Walk and Don't Walk with a helluva hangover and the realization the finger-popping place in our minds has been reduced to postcards. It's been replaced by a metropolis and megaresorts, its wiseguy characters dug up and crammed into warring mob museums.

I'd about given up hope of seeing the old town again, but then Pegg Wallace gave me the high sign, and I dropped by the New York City Bar & Grill for the annual reunion of former Dunes employees. Dozens of ex-casino and hotel workers shuffled up and dealt stories throughout the evening.

The ghosts of former operators Sid Wyman, Major Riddle and Morris Shenker were conjured. They ran the magic carpet joint that opened May 23, 1955, and was reduced to rubble Oct. 27, 1993, and then replaced by the Bellagio.

To call the Dunes a mob casino doesn't do it justice. It was the Damon Runyon version of the Ritz-Carlton. To hear the employees tell it, they loved every day and night there.

Back when he was known as the richest man in the world, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi gambled frequently and dropped a bundle at the Dunes. Craps dealer Jim Howard dealt often to Khashoggi, whose passion for casino games was rivaled only by his reputation for hedonistic excess.

When Khashoggi wanted to take a swim, Dunes bosses installed a rooftop pool. When he wanted to gamble, they closed off a section of the casino for his personal use.

And when the richest man in the world wanted a snack? What repast would satisfy such a rich palate?

"We'd stop the game when he wanted something to eat," Howard recalled. "He'd want a grilled American cheese sandwich on whole wheat and a bottle of Coca-Cola -- don't open up the bottle," Howard said. "And you'd set it on the table, and that's where he would eat. And after he had his sandwich and his Coke, then we'd continue playing again. He played all the games. He had his own pit there, a craps table, a roulette table, a baccarat table, a 21 table, and whatever he wanted. He would have a regular little casino, and he would go from one table to another and maybe lose $250,000 or $300,000 a night."

Khashoggi was filthy rich, but former Dunes dealer and author Barney Vinson recalls the night he looked up and dealt to the King.

"Elvis would come in when he was playing at the International. He would come in about 3 in the morning," said Vinson, who met wife Debbie at the casino. "He liked it because nobody would bother him. He'd have on his outfit, his cape and everything.

"Frank Sinatra would come in have big security guards, and bodyguards, and Bob Hope would come in by himself. And Bob Hope was bigger than Sinatra."

Dana Petrarca was a Dunes pit clerk who brought snapshots from a mere 35 years ago of her with co-workers at the company golf tournament. She greeted old friends and recalled the time Wyman gave her a color television as a house-warming gift. She remembers with pride how fun it was to come to work with people who weren't under the corporate microscope.

It might not have been great for business, for the scandalous Dunes leaked like a sieve and only occasionally turned a profit, but there was something special about the fabulous carpet joint.

"We were like a family," Petrarca said. "We really were."

The Dunes is gone like a Mojave mirage, but wasn't it fun while it lasted?

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.