Sahara Club struggling to help alcoholics, addicts

WARREN — Wayne Graham isn’t real sure whether establishing an alcohol-free and drug-free club in a former tavern has been a blessing or a curse.

On the one hand, he wants people to walk into the Sahara Club at 2345 Youngstown Road anticipating a good time, such as they might have had in the 1970s and 1980s, when the building housed Lefty and Jim’s, a popular nightclub.

On the other, there are recovering alcoholics and recovering drug addicts who associate the building with drinking and drugs and don’t think they’ll feel comfortable there.

But Graham, the volunteer manager of the Sahara Club, has tried to remove any reminders that his club was once a bar.

“There’s nothing in here that would even make you think it’s a bar,” he said.

In fact, the part of the building the Sahara Club occupies — the basement — was actually a banquet room called the Pompeii Room.

Each Friday night, around 200 people pack the Sahara Club to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Throughout the week, another 14 meetings of AA, Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon (for families of alcoholics) use the facility for meetings.

The club is having trouble coming up with the rent, Graham said. Because the club is the only alcohol-free and drug-free facility of its kind in the Mahoning Valley that offers leisure activities geared to the recovering alcoholic and drug addict and his or her family, Graham will be sad if the club has to close.

For the complete story, see Sunday's Vindicator and Vindy.com