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Palace Station employees reflect on 40 years of memories

The employees of Palace Station have seen it all in the 40 years the venerable locals casino has been open.

A flood that turned the casino’s stairway entrances into waterfalls and the casino floor into a lake in the 1980s.

A media circus swarming the place where O.J. Simpson and several of his associates were arrested for robbery in 2007.

A train locomotive that wasn’t anywhere close to Southern Nevada’s rail line.

A boss so beloved that workers often spent their free time and holidays there to be around their friends and their extended work families.

Today, Station Casinos is the acknowledged market leader of the locals casino industry with 21 venues and 12,000 employees. But 40 years ago this week, it was just a dream envisioned by Frank Fertitta Jr.

Throughout July, the company is observing its 40th anniversary, kicking it off Friday at 9 p.m., with a fireworks display at Palace Station. A series of food and gaming promotions is planned at Station properties throughout the month.

It was July 1, 1976, when Fertitta opened a 5,000-square-foot joint called The Casino with 90 employees overseeing 100 slot machines, a few table games and a snack bar attached to the Mini Price Motor Inn on Sahara Avenue west of the Strip.

Local residents had been wanting a place of their own, knowing that the Strip hotels were generally there for tourists.

A year later, when Fertitta determined that the local crowd wanted a place where they could sit down and play bingo, The Casino was expanded with a bingo hall and the place became known as the Bingo Palace.

It wasn’t until 1983 that Fertitta expanded again and sought a more dignified name for his property, staging a “name the casino” contest for locals. Las Vegan Claire Jarvis submitted “Palace Station,” a nod to the historic legacy Bingo Palace name.

When Fertitta retired in 1993, he turned the business over to his sons, Frank III and Lorenzo, who saw opportunity to expand the brand across the valley.

SHIFTING TO EXPANSION

In a 10-year span, Station opened or acquired 18 properties, absorbing the Fiesta and Wildfire casino brands. The company took on management of a pair of tribal casino properties and even secured land in Reno to take the brand to Northern Nevada, a move that never occurred.

In recent years, Lorenzo Fertitta and his longtime friend Dana White have grown mixed martial arts, acquiring the Ultimate Fighting Championship brand.

And, earlier this year, Station announced plans to acquire the Palms for $312.5 million, a sale that is expected to close by the third quarter.

Station isn’t without controversy.

Critics have stung Station over its foray into bankruptcy court in 2009 with the company successfully reorganizing in 2011 and emerging relatively unscathed. Station also is one of the few casino companies that doesn’t have union labor, a fact the local Culinary Union continuously reminds people of at public meetings.

While unions have tussled with Station, you won’t find a more loyal following of employees who view Palace Station as their home.

There aren’t any of the original employees who have been with Station since opening day, but a small group of long-time workers gathered in the casino Tuesday to share stories about their time on the job.

“It’s like a big family here,” said Debbie Walsh, a bingo caller who has been with the company 38 years.

One of the reasons the Palace family is so close is because Fertitta himself made an effort to know the employees. Walsh said the employees know the names of their customers and they know them.

THEN THERE WAS O.J.

She also recalled the day that O.J. Simpson was arrested at the property because she remembered having to park across the street from the casino since news crews had smothered the parking lot.

“It was a circus, I remember that,” Walsh said. “A lot of us hadn’t heard what had happened and when we arrived at work there was this big crowd of people.”

Betty Brown, a PBX operator at Palace for 24 years, mostly gets to know many of her co-workers by voice since she relays messages or connects people through the property’s switchboard.

She said she’s learned about customer service by watching how adeptly Fertitta handled things. Today, she can laugh about some of the strange inquiries she gets from customers on the phone.

“They’ll ask me things like, ‘What time do you close?’ or ‘What are the winning numbers going to be?’ or ‘Which slot machine is going to hit today?’ And I usually tell them, ‘If I knew the answer to that, don’t you think I’d be down there myself?’” she said.

Bernice Boykin, a cashier cage agent at Palace for 37 years, said employees have received invitations to the Fertittas’ home for special family events and she feels a special connection to Frank Fertitta because she believes she was one of the last people to talk to him before he died in 2009.

“I was connected with him on the phone and I remember him asking me, ‘Are you behaving, Bernice?’ I laughed and said I was and then he told me, ‘I’m so tired.’ When I was on my way out that day, one of my co-workers asked me if I had heard the news and she told me that he had passed away.”

HIGH WATERS, TOO

Mike Manning, a floor shift manager at Santa Fe Station, had worked for years at Palace Station and recalled when a storm flooded the casino floor with 2 feet of water.

Manning, a 39-year Station employee, said managers managed to set up a makeshift casino floor on the second floor of the property within two weeks of the flood and that employees never lost a day’s pay during the incident.

“The first day I met Mr. Fertitta, he came into the pit area with a couple of other gentlemen when several of the dealers were getting ready to go on break,” Manning recalled.

“He walked up and introduced himself, and said, ‘I’m Frank Fertitta, I own the place, but I like to work with people. I want you to know that you can talk to me anytime you want, I’m here for you and that I want you to enjoy yourself.’ From that day on, he’d walk past me in the hallway and be talking to two or three other people, but he’d always look up and give me a nod. He’d make us feel so important.”

When the property adopted its railroad theme when it opened as Palace Station in 1983, the company arranged for a retired locomotive, the Inyo, to be placed on the property.

Boykin thinks there may have been a little Fertitta’s spirit in that engine.

“He loved that train,” she said. “And I loved that train. I’d go out there to that locomotive some days and I’d say, ‘Hi, Frank.’”

And she loves working at Palace Station.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Find him on Twitter: @RickVelotta

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