They approached the owner of the Sal Sagev Hotel - that’s Las Vegas spelled backward - and leased the ground floor for a casino. The group sold the Westerner at a profit and were looking for another venture. Alioto put him in touch with a man who formed a group of Bay Area investors.Ĭut to a few years later. So Giorgetti went to his San Francisco attorney, Joseph Alioto, and asked if he knew of a potential buyer. “The local authorities went to him and said, ‘We’re not feeling comfortable with you having a casino in Las Vegas,’ ” Brandenburg said. During the televised Kefauver hearings on organized crime, he was subpoenaed.
It happened like this, says Brandenburg, chairman of the Fremont Street Experience and former owner of the Golden Gate: In the early ’50s, Emilio “Gumba” Giorgetti owned the old Westerner at Fremont and First streets downtown.
As far as Mark Brandenburg is concerned, shrimp cocktail ran the mob out of downtown Las Vegas.
