35th anniversary marked since Happy Land fire killed 87 people in the Bronx
The club was set on fire as an act of arson by Julio Gonzalez.
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It's been 35 years since one of the deadliest fires in the Bronx. A total of 87 people were killed when an arsonist set fire to the Happy Land Social Club in West Farms.
Franco Mena was among the mourners gathered around the Happy Land Monument on Southern Boulevard Tuesday night.
Mena was on his way to the Happy Land Social Club to meet his cousins and friends from his soccer team on the night of March 25, 1990.
"When I turned around, everything was closed - all I saw was fire, fire coming from the social club," said Mena.
Revelers, many of them Hondurans, were inside to celebrate Carnival, when fire raced up the stairs of the only exit and trapped them inside. Mena's cousins and friends died in the fire.
"I know about 40 people I lost over there," said Mena.
Investigators say the fire was caused by disgruntled ex-boyfriend, Julio Gonzalez. Gonzalez got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend who worked at the coat check. He was thrown out of the club but then returned with a gasoline can. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison but died in 2016.
Stivin Benedith, president of the Garifuna-American in Law Enforcement Association, said his parents had plans to go to the club that night, but an argument kept them home.
"The night they should have been there, how it happened, it broke my heart, because I could have lost my parents that night," said Benedith.
The social club was unlicensed and had a number of fire code violations, it had previously been ordered to shut down.
"The lack of enforcement from Department of Buildings in the 80s allowed them to continue to operate with all these violations on record. The city really stepped-up building code violations in the 90s after Happy Land fire," said Rafael Moure-Punnett, the district manager for Community Board 6.
News 12 Special Project from 2020: Happy Land - 30 Years Later
