Tony Smaldino

Name: Tony Smaldino
Birth Name: Antonio Smaldino
Hometown: Los Angeles, California, USA
Died: 1957-04-04 (Age:27)
Pro Boxer: Record

Tony Smaldino was an outstanding Golden Gloves boxer in the Los Angeles area. Although he began a professional boxing career, he supported himself by working as a pressman. He had every intent to continue his boxing career, but he was tragically murdered in the worst mass murder in Los Angeles history. On April 4, 1957, Clyde Bates and Manual Chavez were ejected from the Club Mecca bar in Los Angeles for pawing one of the female customers. They drove to a gas station, purchased 5 gallons of gas in a bucket, returned to the bar where Bates threw the gasoline on the floor of the bar; Chavez immediately threw in a lighted book of matches.

Tony Smaldino, along with Gilbert Gonzalez (an apprentice chef at the prestigious Scandia Restaurant), Joe Maytorena (a retail supermarket checker), Jackie MacInnes (a waitress), Harry Robinson (retired), and Phil Crawshaw (a young man who had recently moved to LA from Seattle) were all murdered in the blaze that followed. To this day, the Club Mecca murder remains the worst mass murder in Los Angeles' history.