Art festival touted as route to new image

Helena Garcia grew up in a Las Vegas where residents thought nothing of leaving their doors unlocked at night, where children weren't joining gangs to survive and where drug deals weren't being conducted openly on street corners.

The 39-year-old businesswoman would like to see those days return.

Toward that end, she and her partner have joined a group of about 40 downtown residents and business people who have taken the first step in revitalizing a part of old Las Vegas.

In an effort to join forces in their battle against crime, they have formed an organization called the Downtown Central Development Committee, or DCDC.

One of the DCDC's first actions, even before electing 18 board members -- including the outspoken Garcia as its president -- was to get a Las Vegas City Council committee to support the expansion of an "order-out" ordinance that encompasses central Las Vegas, including the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods.

The order-out area is a no-tolerance zone for prostitutes and drug dealers, who are ordered out with assurances that they will be prosecuted if they are found there again.

"This used to be one of the best areas to come to live," Garcia said.

Renee Jacobson, co-owner of Your Place or Mine For Lunch, a restaurant at 622 E. Carson Ave., looks at the bullet holes in her front door and window, from random shots fired when the business was closed.

From her restaurant, she routinely sees drug deals taking place across the street.

"It's the best view in town if you want to see drug deals going down," Jacobson says.

The drug deals are taking place right under the noses of such agencies as the Drug Enforcement Administration, Metro Police, U.S. District Court and Clark County District Court -- all of which are within two or three blocks of Your Place or Mine For Lunch.

Most of Jacobson's clients are professional people, including attorneys and judges and their support staffs.

But the drug dealers are blatant about their business.

"Car pools drive up and park across the street. It's like a waiting line. Someone walks up to the window of the car, an exchange is made and the next person walks up," Jacobson said.

Prostitutes are no less blatant.

"One time a repairman came down to the restaurant to make some repairs and, before he got inside, a hooker jumped into his truck and wouldn't get out," Jacobson said. She, along with her partner, Karla Done, bought the 18-year-old business more than a year ago.

The repairman drove the prostitute around the corner and dropped her off at Metro Police.

"This is a wonderful shop and I have great clientele," Jacobson said, "but the drugs and prostitution are becoming progressively worse."

So far, under the order-out program, 48 prostitutes have been told not to return to the area, Metro Police Officer Dan Zehnder said. Zehnder, along with Officer Angelique Dominguez-Mills, is a community liaison person between the department and organizations such as the DCDC.

The City Council is expected to follow the committee's recommendation at Monday's meeting and vote to expand the area.

"Our goal is to revitalize downtown, but to do that we need to eliminate crime or at least to get it under control," said Garcia, one of the co-founders of Camino Al Futuro, a training center that helps Hispanics develop the necessary skills to find work.

Getting rid of crime goes beyond merely getting rid of criminals. It also means forcing "nuisance businesses" to change their practices. Such businesses include hotels that charge hourly rates and convenience stores that sell products commonly used as drug paraphernalia.

Clearing out the nuisance firms would help legitimate businesses survive and perhaps even flourish.

"I have a vision for downtown," Teri Galardi, 39, said. "I would like to see a lot of shops and bookstores and bakeries. There are no real conveniences downtown.

"I want people to feel comfortable when they come here to shop."

Galardi, who helped organize the DCDC, owns the Beers and Cheers and the Backdoor lounges.

The clubs once were favorite watering holes for casino workers, who would walk a few blocks after the end of their shift to have a drink and relax.

But drug dealers and users and prostitutes have formed a gantlet along the sidewalks in some areas of downtown, so the casino workers go elsewhere.

Though she faces losing her businesses because of a lack of customers, she refuses to serve the clientele she is trying to drive out of downtown.

"We run a clean establishment," Galardi said. "I refuse to cater to druggies and prostitutes."

The DCDC will work with the city's Department of Neighborhood Services to develop a community plan.

At a public ceremony July 9, city officials and top law-enforcement officers signed an anti-crime agreement with the DCDC.

Besides taking control of the streets, the DCDC's plans call for pursuing small-business loans, organizing cleanups and beautification projects of commercial areas, finding funds to enable low-income homeowners to make repairs to their homes, creating affordable housing and developing parks, playing fields and recreational areas.

"We will succeed because we are committed to what we are doing," Garcia said, "and because we are so diverse, representing all different ethnic groups."

At a recent meeting with about 20 block captains -- individuals who take responsibility for organizing the blocks in which they live or work -- Zehnder warned that the solution to the crime problem would not arrive quickly.

"It didn't get this way overnight, and it won't be solved overnight," he said.

Zehnder said he is developing a plan of action against crime that he will present to the DCDC in 30 days, and then the DCDC will be allowed to offer its input.

"We've all got to work together to solve this problem," he said.

Zehnder said the DCDC has the potential to be a powerful organization in chasing away criminals and creating a better business environment.

"And the quicker you band together, the more help you will be to us," he said.

The DCDC was a dormant group until Tom Morgan, a program director for the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC), came to town and decided to pump new life into it.

LISC is a national, nonprofit organization created in 1979 by the Ford Foundation to help restore decaying areas of cities around the nation.

The organization has raised more than $3 billion in grants, loans and other funds for more than 2,500 grass-roots organizations that are rebuilding neighborhoods and business districts as well as fighting crime.

An additional $3.5 billion has been raised by leveraging the initial funds.

LISC has had a presence in Las Vegas since 1994 by providing support for various redevelopment projects, including East Las Vegas Community Outreach, the Westside New Pioneers Community Development Corp. and the West Las Vegas Pride Community.

Interest in the DCDC group, which was formed more than a year ago, waned after the deaths of several members, among other reasons, according to Morgan. He had to decide whether the organization was worth saving.

"I wasn't prepared to just dismiss the area because one group had not succeeded," he said.

In February he sent LISC organizers into the downtown area to recruit new members to the DCDC.

Within a few weeks, Morgan said, he decided his efforts were not in vain.

Morgan said LISC has made a commitment to get funding for DCDC -- about $45,000, which will be used to hire a director and run the office.

Garcia and Galardi were among the first volunteers recruited by LISC.

It didn't take long to find others with similar concerns, people such as Kenneth Glover, Earl White, Josefina Natera, Jaqueline Dalton and Kathy and Allen Jacobson -- all of whom are among the 18 board members elected at a recent meeting.

The Jacobsons bought a home in the area about five years ago and have been watching the incidence of crime around them increase ever since.

Murders. Burglaries. Drive-by shootings.

When they bought the 49-year-old home, the neighborhood was quiet with few problems.

Kathy Jacobsen, a real-estate agent, said the next priority on her list, after dealing with the crime issue, is to promote home ownership.

"That's the way to stabilize a neighborhood," she said.

Glover, 41, was widowed two years ago and sees his efforts to rebuild downtown Las Vegas as a way to rebuild his life in the process.

"This has given me my focus in life," Glover said. He came to Las Vegas six years ago but feels as if his roots run much deeper.

Earl White, a coordinator of resident services for the YMCA's northeast extension, has been here nine years.

"My ultimate goal is to see people take charge of their lives and become productive citizens," he said.

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