How a publican went toe-to-toe with the ‘Black Prince of Lygon Street’
The notorious ‘Black Prince of Lygon Street’ was a man few wanted to cross. However, the owner of a popular Fitzroy pub didn’t bow down to the underworld figure’s demands, and this is how it ended.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It was around the mid-’90s and Melbourne was gentrifying, rapidly. Factories and warehouses were closing and turned into desirable apartments for middle-class hipsters, attracted to the cafe society and nightlife of suburbs like Fitzroy, Collingwood, St Kilda and Brunswick.
The irony was that the occupants of those desirable warehouse apartments didn’t actually like to be surrounded by nightlife and cafe society at all; they complained about late-night revellers and the loud music from nearby venues. In other words, they whined about the very thing that attracted them to inner Melbourne in the first place.
This meant traditional music venues like The Rainbow Hotel in Fitzroy and The Tote in Collingwood came under enormous pressure to either close, or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on noise abatement works. In the meantime, venues were also hit with thousands of dollars in fines for exceeding noise limits resulting in many traditional venues like the Tramway and The Lord Newry both in Fitzroy North cancelling the bands.
Publican Chick Ratten was tearing his hair out; even though the pub had been a venue since the ’30s, the residents of the newly built apartments opposite in St David St were driving him crazy with noise complaints. These objections resulted in visits from council officers, thousands of dollars in fines and orders for him to install airconditioning and double-glazing.
As he said to me once, it’s killing me, financially and mentally. But he was determined that his seven-nights-a-week venue would remain open.
Then around 1996, a new block of apartments was planned adjacent to the pub in Young St. Chick saw the plans and hit the roof. All the apartments’ bedrooms were to be located on Young St, directly facing the hotel, guaranteeing a new round of complaints, fines and expensive renovations. He put a formal objection to the development into council.
Little did Chick know, or anyone else for that matter, that the person behind the development was none other than the notorious ‘Black Prince of Lygon Street’ and head of the underground crime syndicate known as the Carlton Crew, Alphonse Gangitano. Chick had grown up on the hard streets of Brunswick, was a champion boxer and knew a thing or two about taking care of himself, so when Alphonse and his crew came into his hotel a couple of weeks after he lodged his planning objection, he wasn’t fazed. Alphonse ordered a beer and some drinks for his goons. Chick waited, and when Alphonse finally spoke the conversation went something like this.
“So Mr Ratten, you have objected to me building my apartments over the road there, is that right?”
“Yep, that’s right, if you build what I see on your plans, you’ll kill my business, so yes, I’ve put in a number of objections to the council planning department,” said Chick.
Alphonse smiled and nodded. “Hmm, OK, well let my say we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is, you withdraw your objection. The hard way is you don’t.”
Chick looked at him and looked at his goons, smiled and said, “Ah well, I guess it’ll be the hard way. I want those plans changed!”
Chick saw anger flash into Gangitano’s eyes, so he held up his hand. “Before we go any further, Alphonse, you tell your grandfather, that Chick Ratten has asked that you accommodate my wishes in all of this and see what he says.”
Apparently Chick and Gangitano Snr had grown up together in Brunswick.
A few weeks later Chick received a call from Alphonse inviting him to lunch at the up-market Florentino restaurant in Bourke St. Chick knew his refusal to back down from Gangitano was a gamble. He wondered if this invitation was a ruse for something more serious. But he decided to go ahead and accept the invitation.
He went out and bought a second-hand herringbone-patterned suit and on the allotted day of the luncheon appointment, told his wife that if he wasn’t back at the pub by three o’clock she should call the police.
“I walked into the upstairs dining room of the cafe. Alphonse and I were the only patrons. He sat at the head of a long table and you wouldn’t believe it, he was wearing an exact replica of my suit! We roared laughing!”
Alphonse said that he had talked to his grandfather and that he remembered me very well. He then unfolded the plans and asked what I wanted. I said I want the bedrooms moved and the apartments set back a little from the street, and if you do that I’ll withdraw my objections from council. Alphonse nodded and put his plans away.
“OK, no problems, let’s have lunch!”
Chick couldn’t believe it, he’d won, or so he thought. Suddenly the Rainbow became a kind of clubhouse for the Melbourne Mafiosa. Besuited and bejewelled, crims started filling the venue most nights of the week, making the ragged blues fiends of Fitzroy decidedly nervous.
Then one night, a group of young punks caused some bother, a brawl broke out, glass was smashed, furniture demolished. Chick jumped the bar and belted the ringleader, then threw him out into the street. The bloodied young buck splattered: “You’re a dead man, mate, my uncle is Alphonse Gangitano …”
And so he was. The next week the young man, sporting a blackened eye returned to the hotel with his uncle in tow. Alphonse shook hands with Chick and said, “I believe my nephew caused bit of trouble here at the pub the other night, did some damage, am I right?”
“Yep, he did, that’s why I threw him out!”
“And fair enough too, how much was it to repair the damage, do you think?”
Chick mentioned a figure and Alphonse wrote out a cheque to cover it. The young man was then forced to offer Chick an apology and a promise never to darken the pub’s door again.
This is an edited extract of ROOTS: How Melbourne became the live music capital of the world by Craig Horne, published by Melbourne Books, $34.95