Gary J Sibio
Dean O’Banion’s Flower Shop on State Street Across from Holy Name Cathedral
Like many gangsters, Prohibition was a boon to their business. O’Bannion imported “Real McCoy” beer from Canada. Soon the gang controlled the politics and the alcohol in Chicago’s north side 42nd and 43rd wards. In 1921 Steve Wisniewski, one of the gang’s bootlegging contacts, made the mistake of hijacking one of their trucks. The gang found out and Weiss took Wisniewski for a ride to Chicago’s lakefront. Weiss returned alone and told the others, “I took Stevie for a one-way ride.” The phrase “one-way ride” became entrenched in gangster jargon.
Weiss did not restrict his “getting even” to humans. When “Nails” Morton, who bought their stolen cars, died after being thrown from a horse, the gang took the horse on the spot where the accident had occurred and shot it.
Weiss was not the most easy-going person. In 1926 his brother said he had only seen him once in twenty years. That was in 1920 and Weiss had shot him. He told photographers who tried to take his picture that he would kill them if they did.Weiss’ bad attitude extended to the authorities. Once he chased away a Deputy U.S. Marshal at gunpoint when he came to arrest one of Weiss’ friends for violating the Mann Act. The marshal returned with reinforcements and arrested the friend, but Weiss filed a lawsuit claiming the marshal had stolen his silk shirts and socks. The case was thrown out.
Weiss is said to be the only man that fellow-ganster Al Capone feared. After O’Bannion was killed by Capone’s men in 1924 at their headquarters in Schofeld’s flower shop across the street from Holy Name Cathedral, Weiss became single-minded in his desire to kill Capone and his cohort Johnny Torrio. Weiss was now the gang’s leader and, besides getting revenge on the man who killed his friend, he wasn’t averse to taking over Capone’s profit-making activities.
