The spot where the Four Queens casino currently stands on Fremont Street was actually the original location for White Cross Drugs, Las Vegas' first 24-hour pharmacy, which opened in 1955 and featured a soda fountain that was a favorite of the then teenage singer Wayne Newton, who was at that time performing with his brother Jerry at the Fremont.
In 1964, the Four Queens bought the property and began construction on a new hotel and casino, at which point White Cross moved south down Las Vegas Boulevard to its final location at Oakey. Over the years, the building has welcomed everyone from the Rat Pack to Elvis, and from Liza Minnelli to Ludacris, not to mention countless showgirls, whether to fill a prescription or pick up some cosmetics or grab a bite at the diner, which exists within the same building but under separate ownership.
It was only in the course of researching this answer that we learned that White Cross was less a victim of the recession, as we'd assumed, and more a victim of the illegal prescription-drug epidemic that's rampant in and around Las Vegas. After 21 years of working at the pharmacy, which she actually purchased back in 2003, owner Marcie Davis was forced to close after their principal pharmaceutical supplier, Cardinal Health, cut them off last October for "ordering too many controlled drugs."
Prior to that point, the pharmacy's technicians had been anything but idle and were filling about 300 prescriptions a day. Davis claimed she didn't realize there was a cap on the number of drugs she could order, and tried to compensate for Cardinal's cut-off by stocking from a smaller supplier, but it wasn't enough to fulfil her customers' demands. When the smoking ban (since reversed) came into effect, it knocked out many of Davis' video poker-playing regulars, too, (the pharmacy had a bank of 15 machines) and reduced that part of her business to an eighth of its former level.
When Davis was finally forced to close the doors last March, it threw out of their jobs a workforce of 22 employees, some of whom had been there for more than three decades. A nearby Walgreens took on the pharmacy's long-standing customers. We don't know what the plans are for the White Cross building, if any. Marcie Davis and her husband had no intention of turning the space into anything and were planning a move into real estate, the last we heard. Teddy Pappas, owner of Tiffany’s Cafe (formerly Liberty Cafe), the separate but adjoining '50s-style diner featured in the truly awful gambling movie Lucky You and reputedly the first 24-hour restaurant in town, intends to stay right where he is, business permitting.
