Man survives crash, opens new cantina
Scott Frost's dream was to open a Las Vegas version of Hussong's Cantina, a Baja California icon for the party crowd.
His goal hasn't changed, but the degree of difficulty did after May 10 last year. That's when a near-fatal spinal injury from a motorcycle accident near Henderson left him a quadriplegic.
Now Frost's idea of an achievement will be measured in the 18 unassisted steps he hopes to take tonight from the entrance to a bar stool. After parking his wheelchair outside the door, his goal is to walk in without any mechanical device.
"Just me holding onto my fiancée's hand," Frost said Wednesday.
Those 18 steps "will be a distance record for me," he said. He's come a long way since the Mother's Day accident in Madeira Canyon. His ride ended when he dropped off into a concrete flood drainage culvert, and his dirt bike fell on him. He endured 50 minutes of high temperatures before medical help arrived.
Frost was so convinced at the accident scene he wasn't going to make it that he had a friend call his daughter, 17, and son, 14, and hold a cell phone up to his mouth "so I could say goodbye."
Moments after the call, "I said a prayer and passed out." He spent his 43rd birthday in the intensive care unit at the Desert Canyon Rehabilitation Hospital.
After 11 of his 70 days in the hospital, he was on the telephone with his partner, Jeff Marks, negotiating a deal with Mandalay Bay to put a modern replica of the 117-year-old Ensenada, Mexico, landmark on the Strip.
His fiancée, Megan Powell, spent the 70 days at his side, sleeping in a chair next to his hospital bed or on a cot in the rehab center. Before he was discharged July 29, Frost and Powell got engaged "because that's a woman I do not want to let go of."
One of the founders of Vegas Hotspots, a VIP hosting company and destination planner, Frost and Marks formed Titan Nightlife Group in 2006 during the heyday of the Las Vegas nightclub scene.
They had decided, said Frost, "that it was far more lucrative to own them than promote them and that's when Titan was born."
Instead of competing with the high-end clubs, Titan's plan was to cater to "the Joe Iowa's, in their tank tops and flip-flops, who were being left out."
The bar in the 3,700-square foot space at The Shoppes at Mandalay Place will be an exact replica of the original, he said. "We like to say the only thing missing is the sawdust and smell of diesel," a reference to the fuel that was poured on the cantina's floor to keep it from corroding.
On the walls, among copies of the original old photographs, will be portraits of Vegas icons Elvis, Wayne Newton and Robert Goulet.
"And we'll have the best fish tacos in town," promised Frost, who grew up in Reno.
Tonight's festivities are closed to the public until 10 p.m.
RELIEF EFFORT TOPS $100,000
Bette Midler's Haitian relief offer to match donations from the last 10 shows of her two-year run at Caesars Palace saw the total soar past $100,000 on Wednesday night.
Crowd donations entering the fourth night of the offer were just over $46,000, or about $93,000 with Midler's matching sum. Donations will be taken through the final show on Jan. 31 at the Colosseum. All proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders, the international medical organization operating in Haiti.
THE PUNCH LINE
"Conan (O'Brien) says he wants to work for a network that's more trustworthy than NBC. How about Al Jazeera?" -- late-night TV host David Letterman
Norm Clarke can be reached at (702) 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com.
