Agreed. I also think because of the greatly reduced racket opportunities out in CA., many guys just couldn't 'lock into' the kind of real solid and steady rackets like back on the east coast in the grittier mafia dominated (and Italian and Jewish ) neighborhoods. You know its a lot different when your plying your trade in a Little Italy, East Harlem, Bronx, or Williamsburg or East New York where there was a heavy influx or jewish, Italian, and Irish immigrants. As opposed to trying to deal with the white bred, WASP, 'americani' born people of the country or west coast where they looked at those immigrants like martians and didn't even understand their lifestyles and mindsets.

It just wasn't as conducive a geography for rackets period!

Hmmm...
While Southern.Cal didnt have the East Coast variety of ethiciticies....
It did and does have a intresting mix of Mexican, and Southeast Asian
Groups.
Could have the traditional LA LCN Family made their presence felt
With those groups with traditional LCN rackets?
Then.you.include the adult film industry and plus construction
Rackets in Southern Cal....
Didnt at one point in NYC the Gambinos were fully entrenched
In the concrete industry in NYC
Plus the LA Family could have really profited from.the stolen cars
And chop shops much how Roy DeMeo got wealthy off of back East

The reason it was hard to bribe cops is because of the culture. It was a good ole boys "cowboys and sheriffs" culture. Its the wild west and those gangsters were outsiders. Its not that it wasn't Corruption (contrary to this, California was very corrupt), its just the mob was kinda on the outskirts of this system. Unlike NY, where it was interwoven with the system, and inherited from the original jewish guys.

Thats a good way to put it Don Pep

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they did fool around with porno, and interact with Mexicans moving junk across the border. But overall, it wasn't as conducive an atmosphere for Italian OC as gritty eastern areas for many reasons. And if you are familiar with Chinese. especially many decades back, they are a very insular people and handle their own stuff. They weren't open to dealing with whites. Plus, it was a very different dynamic in Cali for all the reasons I stated. And the cali crew was small and somewhat disjointed compared to better organized and larger east coast CN borgatas

Sorry but the LA police (at leate in Italy) had the fame to be violent and rogue,so if the money ofcthe italians had the same color why could be so hard to bribe a cop? Maybe the cops gain better extortiong the other white criminals? Maybe this is the reason or maybe they prefer to direct extort money to all the streets criminals.

For import sicilians from italy,there was a total number of people that can immigrate every years and the gov could make a veto on a person if had criminal records.

I think there were a few guys who did business with the yakuza.

Tommy Gambino is still going strong in LA.

Yep a lot of Mexicans for decades.

The Dragna era was the golden era. I've lived in this city since 2018 and had conversations with a few old timers. It's funny, there's a lot of guys from Brooklyn in LA. I know one guy who owns a pizzeria in Sherman Oaks who grew up in Park Slope and was around the Persicos. He said he left Brooklyn because he was tired of getting photographed by the police lol

In Europe all we know about LA are the Crips and Bloods.

LOL... well nowadays thats all that's there. This expose I wrote about Dragna, etc., is absolutely, positively, from a bygone era..... long gone! Never to be seen again.

Mexican drug cartels, gangbangers like the Crips, Bloods, etc., is all you have out there now. And some independents who move tonnage of marijuana to the east coast on occasion.

Sad! But thats what its come down to. They didn't want CN around. Well the feds got their wish. Now they can deal with all the shit thats 1000% worse than CN ever was.Lol

"Mulholland Falls"

It was a waterfall with no water, just wiseguys that police threw off the mountain.

A liberal, "easy breezy" lifestyle had nothing to do with the mob never getting a foothold in Cali, either. It's actually quite the opposite. Before the 1960s, California was one of the most conservative states that made up the former union "northern" states. So conservative in fact that the protestants who ran LA were reluctant to work with Irish, Italian or Jewish gangsters, despite being on the take. By the time the "City Hall Gang" was broken up and Willie Parker took over as chief, the fix in LA was done, and the east coast and midwest mobs that previously ran rackets in LA moved to Vegas. When LA became liberal in the 1960s, this was when the Dragna family began to actually thrive again through drug distribution. Frattiano was wisely trying to form an alliance with la Eme (Mexican Mafia) just before he flipped.

You didn't have the huge Italian and Irish voting blocs like the Eastern cities. So you had people in power descended from the early white settlers. And as you said, different religion, too. It's not like the cops and politicians were rubbing elbows with rackets guys at Sunday Mass. One of the Manson books, I think the one by Jeff Guinn, says that one of those police chiefs, (Parker I think), would not tolerate officers who took bribes or anything, but was totally cool with them using excessive force with little to no provocation. On poor people that is. The rich and influential got off with a warning. He writes a story about some movie stars kids who were shooting out streetlights in a housing development under construction. They were sent home with a warning and their gun was not confiscated. But blacks and working class whites got their asses kicked for much less.

Michael Rizzitello | Jimmy Fratianno | Los Angeles Crime Family | (1981)

Hey Gia...were any of those "oldtimers" involved in the L.A. or San Fransico Porn boom that was going on @ the time...U have 2 remember that VHS was a major thing back n the early 80s..& I know 4 a fact that some the "outfit" as well as NY guys had thier hands dirty..??..any input??