15. Prohibition as an Opportunity
As soon as Prohibition was declared in January 1920, Johnny Torrio recognized that it represented an opportunity to reap fabulous riches. He proposed to make alcohol and sell it at a steep markup, now that it was illegal. He came up with an idea to buy breweries, now shuttered and thus readily purchased for pennies on the dollar from desperate sellers. He would then operate them illegally to supply the thousands of speakeasies, brothels, and nightclubs in Chicago and the nearby region.
However, when Torrio ran the idea by his boss, he shot it down. Big Jim Colosimo reasoned that all of Chicago’s criminal outfits were bound to have had the same idea and that if got involved in the illegal alcohol business, it only invite trouble and drag him into confrontations that he would sooner avoid. When Torrio proposed to run the racket on his own, assume all the risk, and split the proceeds with his boss, Colosimo flatly prohibited him, and decreed that nobody in his organization was to participate in bootlegging. That was bad news – for Colosimo.