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For example, Ed "the Skull" Murphy, a former pro wrestler who became a gay bar bouncer, had a proclivity for young boys, and he pimped them out through bars at which he worked. The gay bars were part of the vice rackets, and that also included the flesh trade. Your book says the Mafia pimped out gay men, too… With the liberation movement, gay bars became cash cows for New York's Mafia families. Unfortunately, the LGBT community's complaints about gay bars operating under the Mafia's thumb continued to be ignored for years by law enforcement and public officials. Indeed, after the Stonewall protests, once of the principal goals of the activist groups such as Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front was to get organized crime out of the gay bars. The Mob's exploitation of the gay community was among the reasons for the 1969 protests outside the Stonewall Inn. Moreover, gay men were at risk of blackmail from their Mob overlords. After all, where else were gay folks going to meet? There were often high cover charges and minimum drink requirements.
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This recognized both the legal risk the Mob was taking and the near-monopoly status it enjoyed. The Mafia controlled most gay bars due to their illegal status, and extracted a monetary premium from the gay community. So do you think the Mafia exploited the gay community purely for their own financial ends? The Lion was where Barbra Streisand made her first public singing performance in 1960. He was involved with some of the most popular gay bars during the post-war years, including the Bon Soir and the Lion, which started off as nightclubs with live entertainment attracting both straight and gay patrons but ultimately became predominantly gay bars.
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Ernest Sgroi Sr, one of the principal fronts for gay bars controlled by mob boss Vito Genovese in Greenwich Village, obtained his first liquor license right after the repeal of Prohibition. Well, the Mafia didn't much care about enforcing societal mores or respecting government rules. Accordingly, the Mafia took its experience with speakeasies and used it to operate gay bars, which involved paying off the police departments and liquor authorities charged with enforcing these discriminatory laws.
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After Prohibition was repealed, state agencies regulated bars with vague standards against disorderly premises and moral indecency, which were interpreted to prohibit serving gays. Phillip Crawford Jr: The Mafia was behind many speakeasies in the big cities, such as Chicago and New York, during Prohibition. When did the link between the gay community and the Mafia begin? VICE called him up to talk about all that. Phillip Crawford Jr., author of the book The Mafia and the Gays, argues that the Mafia were much more than proprietors of illegal nightspots he says that they are in fact an intrinsic part of the LGBT movement, sparking the Stonewall riots and enabling the gay community to thrive.