By Larry Henry

One of the important hotels in American Mafia history could be shut down, at least temporarily.

Not the Riviera in Las Vegas, or any of the other notorious, mobbed-up hotels on the legendary Strip: the Stardust, the Sands, the Desert Inn, the Dunes.

Those classic Old Vegas joints are already gone forever.

This one is the Arlington Hotel and Spa in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which recently received an enforcement letter from the city, threatening to close the hotel after an engineering report asserted that the massive, 93-year-old structure is unsafe.

To mob buffs, the Arlington is as significant as any still-open hotel in the country. Most major U.S. Mafia figures from the Roaring Twenties to the Swinging Sixties stayed there, including Al Capone, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Frank Costello, while enjoying the nearby casinos and racetrack.

To view a video I shot of the hotel in July, click here.

The Arlington is where notorious mob leader Charles “Lucky” Luciano had been hiding out for two weeks in the 1930s with a girlfriend named Gay Orlova, a singer and dancer whom he referred to as “Gay All Over,” when he was arrested and transported back East in law enforcement custody to face justice for his role in New York City’s prostitution rackets.

Luciano’s arrest in Hot Springs was unexpected. Local cops protected the gangsters and even hung out with them from time to time.

One April morning in 1936, however, while strolling down Bathhouse Row with a crooked local policeman, Luciano was nabbed when he was spotted by a surprised New York detective in town hunting down a different criminal suspect.

It was not unusual in those days to bump into any number of underworld figures in the Spa City, a scenic resort town in the mountains an hour west of Little Rock, famed not only for its restorative hot waters but also its open tolerance of illegal casino gambling.

Until Las Vegas exploded in popularity during the years after World War II, Hot Springs was the happening spot for gamblers in this country looking to roll the dice or bet the ponies.

After decades of operating with the approval of corrupt local and state officials, though, the illegal casinos finally were shuttered in 1967 by reformist Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller. Only a limited number of legal gambling machines are in operation these days in Hot Springs at the historic Oaklawn racetrack.

Now, according to city officials, the aging, once-opulent Arlington poses a public-safety threat, not because mobsters stay there anymore, but because of hazardous conditions. The owners have until Nov. 8 to address the city’s concerns, including cracked plaster that could fall off in the winter freeze-thaw cycle, according to an Associated Press story.

Last month, the Arlington’s San Antonio-based owners challenged the city’s authority to close the hotel, saying that decision belongs in the court’s hands. The owners said they are planning a $30 million restoration.

Whether the Arlington can remain open through all this is a wait-and-see bet — and the city right now appears to have most of the chips.

Larry Henry’s YouTube channel includes videos he shot of mob sites in Las Vegas, the apartment building in Santa Monica, California, where Whitey Bulger was arrested, and the remote Arkansas airport where Barry Seal transported drugs into the U.S for the Medellin Cartel. Subscribe HERE.

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