Always Pay Your Hitman: The Fall of Al Bramlet - A Las Vegas True Crime Story

Mayhem in the Desert looks at the Restaurant Wars of 1970's Las Vegas and how a failure to follow through on paying a father-son hitman duo resulted in the downfall of one of the most powerful people in Las Vegas history. Las Vegas in the 1970’s was the site of bombings and murders, but not all of this mayhem was linked to the mafia. A labor dispute between the Culinary Union Local 226 and several off-Strip restaurants escalated into violence starting in the fall of 1975, which ultimately resulted in the head of the Culinary Union learning a valuable lesson – never refuse to pay a hitman. Al Bramlet arrived in Las Vegas from southern California in the 1940’s to organize restaurant and casino workers. Over the course of several decades, Bramlet forged the local Vegas Culinary Union into one of the most formidable labor organizations in the nation. But there still remained holdouts against the Culinary Union in 1970’s Vegas. The Culinary Union had been engaged in years of informational picketing outside of several off-Strip gourmet restaurants and taverns in an effort to organize their employees. In some cases, such as with the high-end restaurant the Alpine Village Inn, the union had been picketing for almost twenty years. The frustration by union leadership over the inability to bring these restaurants into their fold was compounded when employees at several Culinary restaurants voted to decertify the union or to form independent bargaining units, weakening Culinary’s power. The first sign these tensions would boil over into violence was in September of 1975 when a small but powerful bomb detonated in an employee locker behind the Alpine Village Inn. Police later discovered another bundle of high explosives that failed to detonate attached to the restaurant’s air conditioning unit along with two smoke canisters. Investigators posited the second bomb was intended to send smoke through the shattered air ducts and into the dining area. Only three months later, the Alpine Village Inn was struck again. On the night of December 20, 1975, as over 300 patrons and 70 staff occupied the building, a bomb tore through the roof of the restaurant near the kitchen, leaving a hole over two feet in diameter. Thirty seconds later a second bomb ignited on the roof, sending more debris into the kitchen area. The bombs caused a fire to break out, but nevertheless everyone inside the restaurant was able to make an orderly exit without injury. The lack of loss of life was miraculous – investigators determined that one of the two bombs had nearly ruptured a gas line, which would have instantly reduced the entire building to rubble. The bombings terrorizing non-union restaurants across Las Vegas had allegedly been ordered by Al Bramlet as an extralegal means of increasing his union’s bargaining power. Tom and Gramby Hanley, a father-son hitman team whose handiwork by this point had already left a bloody trail across Las Vegas, were hired to place the bombs. When Bramlet first hired the duo to carry out the bombings, Gramby Hanley used a connection at a local mining company to purchase several hundred pounds of high explosive under-the-table. Bramlet paid the Hanleys tens of thousands of dollars for the bombs from the union fund, with the payments made to Oasis Air Conditioning – a front company run by Tom Hanley. The relationship between the Hanleys and Bramlet had run along smoothly until the failed twin bombings at the Village Pub and Starboard Tack. Bramlet had agreed to pay a total of $17,000 for the two bombings, $7,000 up front and the rest due upon completion of the job. But after both bombs failed to go off, Bramlet refused to pay the remaining $10,000 to the Hanleys. The Hanleys were not one to be stiffed on money they felt was owed. From their perspective, they had taken the risk to build and place the bombs – it wasn’t their fault both security guards decided to call the cops instead of inspecting further and triggering the devices. And it would set a bad example in their line of work to allow a contract to go unpaid. But while the Hanleys wanted to settle their score with Bramlet, they also wanted to avoid unnecessary risks to their safety. It was widely known that Bramlet always carried a .357 revolver on his person in case one of his many enemies tried to do him harm. It would be preferable to deal with Bramlet without worrying about him shooting back, and the Hanleys had a plan to confront the union boss at a place they knew he would be unarmed. Find out more at Mayhem in the Desert: https://www.mayheminthedesert.com/cri...