Correction: Joseph Lazzara was actually the younger brother of Augustine not his son.
Sorry wasnt thinking straight

The Trafficante family died because there were no younger guys to take the place of the older guys who were dying off. No recruits. Although Tampa once had a vibrant Latin community in Ybor City filled with Cuban and Italian immigrants in the early 1900s all the way up to the 80s those days are gone. The old Italian families are still here but the sons of made guys are all legit and their grandsons and greatgrandsons go to private schools.
The Tampa family was always small and had an inner circle of "made" guys and an outer circle of some very loyal Cuban associates such as Johnny Rivera and many others. Many made guys even spoke Spanish. When you grew up in Ybor as a Sicilian, you spoke Spanish in the streets, English in school, and Sicilian at home.
As far as made guys are concerned, there are definitely less than 10 left, very old and they spend their days drinking cafe con leche and complaining about their many doctors appointments. I use quotations with the word "made" because the concept of being "made" in tampa is a grey area. The Sicilians who controlled illegal affairs in Ybor and surrounding areas were a very small group of families from the Santo Stefano region of Sicily. In Tampa, in order to be apart of "our thing" you were either related to the Trafficantes, Decidues, Cacciatories, Lazzaras, Antinori's, Bedami's, Alessi's and a few others or you werent. Period. It was a small enough group where you didnt need a ceremony to tell you if you were a member or not and definitely didnt need anyone to tell you the rules or that Santo Trafficante was the boss. I am not 100 percent sure but am pretty sure that they didnt care for formal making ceremonies.

Vincent Loscalzo did his best to keep the family together but he more or less just tried to keep the italian community together legit or illegit activities.They continued to gamble amongst themselves and had the occasional score here or there. He is still a very respected member of the Tampa community and lives in the northern part of tampa as does most everyone who has ybor roots.

The steve raffa thing is a little bit overhyped. Although he probably did have a crew of 19, i can bet anything that non were made in the sense of a making ceremony. His crew was a bunch of lowlifes from miami and the northern states and not one person other than raffa had any connection to the small tampa italian commuinty. Do not believe anything that rat John Mamone says about being made at Malios restaurant. I bet he did have dinner there like he says but most likely either met with Loscalzo or Santo jose(the boss's nephew) or frank albano and was simply put on record with raffa. John mamone is not from tampa and dosent know a damn thing about ybor city or the italian community.

John Gotti jr and john alite did come down here with a bunch of misfits and did some small time things across the bridge in st pete and clearwater, although they did own a club on hillsbourough ave that was as trashy as a club could get.

Alite probably did meet with Santo Jose like he says, and santo jose told him he didnt care what he did(basically that he didnt want anything to do with him), but told him to stay the fuck away from the old ybor families. Thats exactly why alite mainly operated on the other side of the bridge in st pete and clearwater

If Santo Trafficante was alive today, he would have told Alite and jr gotti to fuck themselves. Santo didnt even like Sonny black when he came down in the early 80s and told him to stay on the outskirts of tampa and away from ybor families just like his nephew santo jose told alite and jr gotti decades later. Donnie Brasco and Sonny Black operated with the bonanos in pasco and polk counties which is about 45 min outside of ybor city, and alite operated in pinnellas county, across the bridge. Tampa is in hillsbourough county and both bonannos and gambinos told to stay out of it.

Ybor these days is filled with a bunch of freaks with tattoos all over themselves and gigantic holes in there ears. The italians have moved to northern tampa and cubans to west tampa. Carmines restaurant is on 7th ave where you can see loscalzo eating occasionally and la tropicana cafe which was a big gambling place is still there and you can sometimes see old timers there. The italian club across the street is practically a museum, and the famous columbia restaurant is basically a tourist attraction.

If Santo Trafficante was alive and he walked down 7th ave in Ybor City he would probably vomit