DeSantis demolition law clears way for hit job on Al Capone’s Miami mansion

Deirdre Marie Capone, Al Capone’s great-niece, in front of the waterfront mansion in 2015. ‘It was a symbol of what Miami Beach was back in the beginning,’ she said. Photograph: Alan Diaz/AP

Al Capone’s historic waterfront mansion in Florida, where the notorious gangster took his last breath in 1947, has itself been whacked, and preservationists are pointing to the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, as the hitman.

The elegant century-old property on one of Miami’s most exclusive islands was quietly razed earlier this month. The take-down followed the enactment of a law from the DeSantis administration last summer stripping municipalities of their power to prevent the demolition of certain properties, regardless of historic designation.