Jack’s, a Police Watering Hole Since ‘54, Closes Its Doors : L.A. Officers Lose Their Sultan of Suds

For a generation of Los Angeles police officers who worked the Hollenbeck Division in Boyle Heights, Jack’s Cocktails was the after-work oasis and Jack Goldstein was its sultan of suds.

It was in his murky, Naugahyde dive across from the station house where the cops celebrated their promotions, grieved their fallen brothers and traded stories of the street. It was also where a young Hollenbeck detective named Joseph Wambaugh collected many of the off-beat images and characters that he would later use in his best-selling novels about life in the Los Angeles Police Department.

But things haven’t been jake for awhile at Jack’s. Most of the old cops have retired or been transferred; the new guys are all doing squat thrusts after work at the Police Academy or sipping Perrier in some fern bar somewhere, Goldstein figures. At 72, he’s not in the best of health anyway, so he’s calling it quits. After more than three decades, Jack’s Cocktails closed for good last week.

“Deep down, I hate to leave it, but I know it’s time,” he said. “Things just ain’t what they used to be.”

In better days, you couldn’t find a vacant stool at Jack’s 34-foot-long bar, days when Goldstein would stand in the doorway with a lighted cigarette tucked behind his ear, yelling, “Get your butts over here!” to thirsty officers returning to the station after eight hours on patrol. They’d come over in droves, particularly on St. Patrick’s Day, when Goldstein would spring for the corned beef and cabbage.

Goldstein was as much an attraction as the drinks he served. Standing behind the bar, he’d fill a glass with scotch and a dash of soda. He’d dump in an ice cube, stir it with a spoon, toss the “rock” out, and lob the spoon over his shoulder. Then, with a toast of “Good health, everybody,” he’d down the drink as if it were water.

His manner toward suspicious-looking strangers was as no-nonsense as his lounge’s decor, earning him the nickname, “Mr. Out” (as in, “You, you and you: OUT!”). But the Hollenbeck patrolmen and investigators who knew him best realized that beneath the hefty crust and gravelly voice was a heart as gentle as aged bourbon. Some of them even called him “Dad.”

“He’s a good friend of the Police Department,” said Detective John Collela, who has worked at Hollenbeck for 16 years. “He was always there when we needed him, even if it was just to talk. He was really a part of us.”

Wambaugh’s former partner, Detective Sgt. Richard Kalk, remembers how Goldstein once stood in formation with Hollenbeck’s officers during an annual inspection on the parking lot. When one of the inspectors demanded to know, “What are you doing here, Jack?” he responded, “This is my home, too.”

“We used to kid him that he was the greatest short-change artist in the world; you were in big trouble if you went over there waving a $20 bill,” said Kalk, who now works at Rampart Division. “But you had to like Jack Goldstein. Everybody did.”

Not long ago, when Goldstein was laid up in the hospital with a bad heart, a couple of uniformed officers from Hollenbeck brought him flowers. They told him there was talk at the station that he was near death.

“Gimme that walkie-talkie,” Goldstein demanded of one of the officers. “I got on it and I said, ‘Hey, fellas, this is Jack. I’m not dying, I’m running the show.’ I thought it would just go to the station, but they said it went all over the department.”

Goldstein never got rich running Jack’s Cocktails, never intended to. He opened the bar on a whim.

In Boston, where he and his wife, Rose, were married 50 years ago, Goldstein operated a dry cleaning business. But when their oldest daughter developed asthma (the couple have five children), he moved the family to Los Angeles.

He continued to work in the dry cleaning industry in Los Angeles until he spotted a “For Rent” sign in the front window of a seedy tavern on 1st Street just east of downtown. It had been closed for two years on a narcotics rap.

“I’m a fighter, so I said to myself, ‘Hell, I’ll whip it into shape and make it a half-decent place,’ ” Goldstein said.

Birth of a Bar

Thus was born Jack’s Cocktails. He remodeled the interior, got rid of the front window and painted 56 four-leaf clovers--green, of course--out front. The green clover told of Goldstein’s upbringing in an Irish Catholic section of Boston; the windowless front wall told his patrons that in Jack’s place, the frustrations of the outside world were but mere distractions to the important things within, like cold beer, level pool tables and a good juke box.

That was in November, 1954. Next week, after 32 years of pouring beer and mixing drinks, Goldstein is to receive a proclamation from Councilman Richard Alatorre’s office for his dedicated service, particularly to Los Angeles’ finest.

However, as he and Rose prepare to move from their Monterey Park apartment to their daughter’s summer home high above Lake Arrowhead, Goldstein is not thinking of accolades from City Hall, but of retirement.

“It’s time for a little peace and quiet,” he admitted. “Listen, I made a buck and I spent it. I made a lot of friends along the way. I got no regrets. I had a ball.”