‘Private club’ helped many experience turning point in their lives

The closed building at 1130 S. Casino Center Blvd. isn’t exactly a historic Las Vegas edifice. The salmon pink exterior is partly covered with what some would call art, others would call graffitti.

Inside, it’s a sad, tired building.

But when the Turning Point Cafe closed recently, it left memories for folks who used to go there for the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the backroom.

Recently, I dropped by as building manager April Rector was selling off the few remaining things.

Some of the plaques she had made for AA members over the years were still on the wall. Bare spots marked where others had been. The remaining plaques were a somber reminder of lives once demolished by alcohol, although the personalized wooden plaques were a celebration of recovery.

“Never forget,” read one. “Saved by the grace of God,” declared another. First names only, of course, because of the rules of anonymity.

The Turning Point Cafe’s sign outside said “private club” and inside were cracked linoleum floors. One person said the cafe showed you don’t need wall-to-wall carpeting to save lives.

“I came here out of detox in 1984,” said Rector, who will be 29 years sober on May 16.

At 71, she has bright blue eyes and short white hair. Despite her smile, wrinkles on her face reflect a hard life of alcohol, drugs and crime.

She admitted breaking away from booze in 1984 didn’t mean everything turned rosy. She returned to Idaho and a life of crime, describing herself as a former gangster. “People know my whole story and know if I can do it, they can do it.”

Last September, Rector, who had managed the building since 1988, decided to leave Las Vegas and return to Idaho to be with family because of a health problem. She hired someone to run the cafe and the Winfield Manor while she was gone.

In December, someone reported bed bugs in the hotel portion. Then in January, the city of Las Vegas issued a 72-hour notice to vacate because the building was a public nuisance. The entire building was closed when the owners didn’t fix the heat.

The majority owner is Casino Center Two LLC, and the minority owner is Munnell Community Property Trust. The resident agent is Lakeside Mortgage’s Thomas Brooker, who said the owners are hoping to develop the building as part of the Arts District. If Rector had been able to remain on the scene, the owners would have kept the building open, but when she left, they decided to close it, Brooker said.

Rector returned to shut everything down.

“I can’t run a business from 1,200 miles away,” she said.

Rector has seen thousands come to the “private club.” Judges, attorneys and doctors mingled with the homeless and indigent, all battling their own demons.

Plenty didn’t succeed. “They die or they go insane,” she said.

She mentioned Repeat Pete as someone “who just couldn’t get sober.” She worked with him repeatedly before finally telling him, “Go out there and die. I’m done with you.”

Four weeks later, he pulled himself together.

“He just celebrated four years of sobriety,” Rector said .

Tears welled up briefly as she said, “I was one of the people who came through that door broken and got sober.”

A woman who was in the program and knows Rector confirmed she had helped many by operating the Turning Point. “She was very sincere about the program giving her life back to her. She cared.”

Rector summed it up in five words: “God is my life today.”

Nobody can contest that, or all the good she did at the Turning Point, where alcoholics went for help, where they at least tried, even if they didn’t always succeed.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at 702-383-0275. She blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison.