Lugano Bar evolved from workers’ pub into Zürich underworld venue

The Lugano Bar on Zürich’s Langstrasse has changed from an Italian workers’ pub into a venue associated with prostitution, police raids and deadly violence, SRF reports. The bar at Langstrasse 108 has operated for more than 50 years.

Women waiting for clients work in the rooms above the bar. An older man now drinks beer at the wooden counter where a bartender was killed three years ago.

Bartender killed in 2023

In summer 2023, a 50-year-old man allegedly entered the bar, sprayed pepper spray in the bartender’s face and stabbed him at least seven times with a 13-centimetre knife. The bartender suffered injuries to his lung, kidney and spleen and bled to death at the scene.

According to the prosecution, the attack followed months of delusions. The man had been searching in the Langstrasse district for a woman named Debora and a child he believed was his own. After failing to find them, he became convinced that people connected to the Lugano Bar were deceiving him and hiding them.

Police arrested him more than two months after the killing. The court said video recordings, movement data and an analysis of his phone data linked him to the crime scene. Investigators also found clothing matching that seen in surveillance footage. The alleged murder weapon was found on his bedside table in Hungary, where he had temporarily returned after the attack.

The Zürich District Court sentenced the now 53-year-old man to 13 years and five months in prison for murder. A psychiatric assessment diagnosed, among other conditions, paranoid schizophrenia and described him as unpredictable and willing to use violence. The court also ordered his expulsion from Switzerland for 12 years after he serves his sentence.

The Hungarian national has advanced cancer and attended the trial from his hospital bed. He denies the crime, while his defence lawyer had sought an acquittal. The verdict is not yet legally binding.

Another killing in 2002

The 2023 killing was not the first murder in the building. In early 2002, several shots were fired in the stairwell and police found two bodies. Former city police spokesman Marco Cortesi later recalled a devastating scene.

The incident began when a woman went to visit her partner, who lived above the bar, but knocked on the wrong door. An argument followed with the neighbour, who hit her in the face. When her partner learned what had happened, he first shot her because she tried to stop him from attacking the neighbour, and then shot the neighbour.

Plans for a new beginning fail

Businessman Rico Caprez later bought the entire building, including the bar, hoping to turn it into a hotel for ordinary guests. The Lugano Bar was to remain, but the surrounding milieu was meant to disappear. The plan failed.

The building later came under the control of a prominent figure in Zürich’s red-light milieu known on Langstrasse as Papi, according to several media reports. His name is reportedly displayed on his venue, Schweizerdegen El Papi, located 35 metres from the Lugano Bar. For several years, he has owned both establishments.

Conditions in the rooms above the bar became particularly visible during the coronavirus pandemic. After two residents tested positive in 2020, all the women living there were placed in quarantine. Police encountered almost 50 women, with as many as four people sometimes sharing a small room. An investigation by the NZZ also linked the building to forced prostitution and human trafficking.

From Italian workers’ pub to red-light venue

The bar’s history began differently. Christine Cristofani worked there in the 1970s and later took over the lease with her partner. Most of their customers were Italian workers. A beer cost just one Swiss franc, and guests played card games such as Briscola and Scopa, sometimes late into the night.

Police raids became a regular feature in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing mainly on suspected illegal sex work in the rooms above the bar. The landlord at the time denied responsibility in an interview with Tages-Anzeiger, saying tenants could receive friends or lovers in the rooms. He also argued that exchanging money for sex was not illegal.