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Opinion: History says the Supper Club fire was no accident Peter Bronson View Comments Ivory-clean Cincinnati has a dirty secret buried in the dim, forgotten past. Long ago, a Faustian bargain was made that was good for the convention business: The northern banks of the Ohio would stay clean – but south of the river, anything goes. Newport, Kentucky became an underworld kingdom, the outlaw grandfather of Las Vegas. It was “Sin City,” “Little Mexico” and “America’s most wicked city,” according to Esquire magazine in 1957. Two decades later it was on the national map again when 165 people were killed in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire – 44 years ago this weekend. ....
Cincinnati Magazine Photograph courtesy Peter Bronson One of the deadliest nightclub fires in U.S. history destroyed the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate on May 28, 1977, killing 165 people. Former Enquirer editor and columnist Peter Bronson has published a new book, Forbidden Fruit, about the tragedy’s connections to Northern Kentucky’s long history as a gambling and organized crime hotbed. The fire was no accident, Bronson claims, but in fact flowed from 40 years of “Sin City” corruption linked to the birth of Las Vegas and even JFK’s assassination. What was the Beverly Hills Supper Club’s connection to Newport’s organized crime history? ....