The building that housed Happy Land club was managed partly by Jay Weiss, at the time the husband of actress Kathleen Turner. "The New Yorker" quoted Turner saying that "the fire was unfortunate but could have happened at a McDonald's". The Bronx District Attorney said that the building's owner, Alex DiLorenzo III, and leaseholders Weiss and Morris Jaffe, were not responsible criminally, since they had tried to close the club and evict the tenant. In 1987, Weiss and Jaffe's company, Little Peach Realty Inc., had leased the building space for seven years to the club owner, Elias Colon, who died in the fire. An eviction trial against Colon had been scheduled to start on March 28. Even if Colon had survived the fire, the eviction trial would have been moot, as the building that housed the Happy Land Social Club was condemned and demolished within 24 hours of the fire.