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Below are photos of the one place in Las Vegas that very few Las Vegas tourists are familiar with.

This place has more guest accommodations than any other building in Downtown Las Vegas, and actually boasts roughly the same number of rooms as the Wynn.   It’s very modern, clean, and well appointed.  On the outside.

On the inside, it also has a number of very “unique” amenities.  These include hang-proof air vents, in-room cameras, regular mental health assessments, excrement on the walls, and all the involuntary man-love a Vegas visitor could ever hope for.  These are features that no other property in Las Vegas will provide … with the possible exception of Encore.

Not only that, but the rooms are always comped.  As a matter of fact, you have to pay to leave.

Known locally as “CCDC”, this one-of-a-kind property is the Clark County Detention Center … a/k/a “The Las Vegas Jail”.

Sure, everyone has heard of this nationally notorious place, and fortunately, few people have actually laid eyes on it.

If you drink and drive, you’re staying here.  If the attractive lady you pick up at the bar is really working for Metro PD, you’re staying here.  If you use an iPhone to count cards, you are staying here. If you don’t drop to your knees, face the Wynn hotel, and bow at least twice a day, you’re staying here.

Our God is a jealous God.

Located in the heart of Downtown Las Vegas on Casino Center Blvd, just two blocks south of Fremont Street, sits the ominous building.

It was designed in 1984 to house roughly 2,950 people, yet on any given day, it holds more than 3,500.  Thank goodness for the “War on Some Drugs When Used By People Who Aren’t Wealthy”, or else the jail might actually be perfectly sufficient to meet the true safety needs of our city.

Fear not, that is as political as I am going to get.  For now.

Even though the place strikes fear into the heart of every man, woman, and beast … CCDC is actually a major boon to the Downtown economy.   I don’t know if numbers are published on this industry, but after casinos, CCDC may well be the economic engine of the area.

Despite the fact that inmates are not typically consumers of local goods and services, CCDC has spawned two massive industries that are obvious to even the most casual visitor to Downtown.  Those industries are bail bonds and attorney offices.

After casinos, motels, and wedding chapels, bail bond joints are the most obvious and glaring businesses dotting the Downtown streetscape. Judging from the phone book listings, there are over 100 of these businesses in a roughly two square mile area.  Frankly, I have never in my life seen so many bail bond establishments in such a concentrated area … anywhere.

Once you are north of Charleston, and south of Fremont (Central Downtown), it is difficult to throw a rock without hitting one.  These places tend to have colorful names with all manners of clever cultural references.  Examples:  Goodfellas Bail Bonds (slogan: Fughettabout It!), Badfellas Bail Bonds (not kidding), Godfathers Bail Bonds, BaDa Bing Bail Bonds (notice a theme here?), Bad Boys Bail Bonds, Bust Out Bail Bonds, and of course Steve Wynn’s “They Don’t Gotta Know That You Choked a Ho” Bail Service.  Obviously I made the last one up (or did I?), but the rest are real.

Frankly, if I was Italian, I might be a little insulted at so many Bail Bond companies being named after my nationality.  Fine, it’s catchy at first, but I just think there would be a public outcry if someone opened a place called Bail a Brotha Out.

Perhaps I am just too politically correct.  It is something I am accused of quite often.  I’ll work on it.

Obviously, this whole mess spawns another massive Downtown industry. Lawyers.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.  I am too.  Verbally crucifying these guys would be like shooting fish in a barrel, though.

Anyway, there are entire streets just to the east of Las Vegas Boulevard that house one lawyer after another in single family homes.

One street in particular, 7th street between Bridger and Charleston is sometimes called “Lawyer Row”.  We have a lot of “rows” and “strips” in this town, but the descriptors are usually appropriate to some degree. This entire street is filled with single family homes that have been turned into law offices.

Of course, none of these places could exist without courts.  Since it is the seat of Clark County, I suppose it should come as no great surprise that our Downtown is overwhelmingly dominated by Court Buildings.  The County Court, Municipal Court, District Court, Bankruptcy Court, Federal Courthouse, City Hall … the majority of Downtown Las Vegas has more real estate devoted to law and politics than it does to gambling.

When you say “Downtown Las Vegas”, images of Vegas Vic and the Fremont Street Experience immediately come to mind … but most of that is confined to a few blocks on a single street.  The majority of our Downtown is a “real” Downtown, replete with municipal buildings and all manners of professional businesses.

As of the 2007 census estimate, the City of Las Vegas has 600,000 people within its boundaries.  To put this into perspective, this puts us ahead of Seattle, Washington DC, Denver, Pittsburgh, Miami and Atlanta.  These numbers count only the city, and not the suburbs.

As a matter of fact, our city population is nearly identical to that of Boston.  We should have a fairly large Downtown.

Throw in immediately adjacent North Las Vegas at 216,000 people, and we have damn near San Francisco numbers.

Throw in Henderson at 273,000 people … on second thought, don’t ever throw in Henderson.

The point is that it’s easy for people to forget, but Downtown Las Vegas is in reality … the urban core of a fairly large city, and serves as the municipal center for an even larger County.

When tourists moan about the filth, the homeless people, and the crime in Downtown… they are not necessarily incorrect … but the hard truth is that it is the inner-city of a real residential population first and foremost, and a gambling destination second.  The Strip has the luxury of not having to concern itself with indignities such as having to carry out the day-to-day operations of a municipality.

Every now and then I think people need to step back and take that into account   It would simply be impossible to gloss the whole place into a tourist destination.  2 million people need a Downtown somewhere.   It rarely gets credit for doing so, but when you stop and think about everything that is demanded of it, Downtown actually does pretty well being everything to everyone.

As for the CCDC, well, you’ve heard the horror stories, and now you can put a face to a name.

If you roll up to this place in the back of a vehicle, you better hope like hell that “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” really is nothing more than a horrible marketing gimmick.

There are no 2-for-1 buffet coupons in here, but they do have all the sausage you can eat.

Also, the “Fun Book” is soooo not what you think it is.

Behave yourselves.

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