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Why the Caisse du Depot should front me $35 million to open a seniors paradise

December 17, 2014, 9:38 am
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  A multitude of studies and ponderous thinkpieces have been written about how an aging Quebec will cause the health care system to collapse.
   But the aging of the population is causing another totally overlooked problem.
   With age, once-robust consumers are transformed into pennypinching spendthrifts.
   That's because for an elderly person, a big spending day involves purchasing a new button for their threadbare cardigan.
   Some old folk are poor but a solid number are well-off with good pensions that they don't end up spending due to lack of effort by pencilnecked marketing geeks who see older folk as a lost cause.
    Studies show that after about age 54 folks stop blowing money on Playstations, fancy suits, new cars and George Clooney DVD box sets and that's a problem because mom'n'pop stores suffer, main street withers and the tax man's cupboard goes bare.
   We need seniors to circulate their money rather than hoard it.
   Yet many of our policies discourage them from doing that.
   Take something like videopoker at the depanneur for example, a hobby popular among elderly with time and $20 to blow.
   Our mother hen government made sure to ban that.
   Bingo? Overregulated. Beer at a tavern? Not cheap anymore. Massage parlours? Busybodies want them closed.
   Their cash is no good here so seniors end up spending money on vacations down south, pouring money into another country's economy and forcing Quebec into a $1 billion annual tourism deficit.
   To help reverse this tide I propose that the Caisse du Depot front me $35 million to create the world's first Mature Mart, a shopping, entertainment and indoor artificial beach community for the elderly.
   It would house a lot of baby clothing stores, as studies demonstrate that elderly women spend their money on the sartorial interests of their grandchildren.
   Steve McQueen, Harold Lloyd, George Clooney movies would play all day long in a little theatre.
    We'd have a ballroom dancing bar and a massive exercise and health complex bereft of intimidating musclemen.
    And the centrepiece would be an indoor beach heated plenty with a domed roof to give the impression of being in Florida without the $15-a-day health insurance costs.
    Quebec and other jurisdictions need to quell the reflex that pushes the elderly to keep their wallets closed. You can't take it with you, and hell no we don't need to pass our money down to our kids. Inheritances only turn the benefactors into entitled d parasites on intergenerational ghoul welfare, let them earn some pride by making their own ways in this world. Spend it all before your time is up.

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Victoria Bridge is ugly, says architecture prof

December 17, 2014, 11:30 am
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Montreal's Victoria Bridge was meant to look like...
     Montreal's Victoria Bridge sure is a durable structure as it's still going strong 155 years after it was built.
   But is it an eyesore?  So thinks architect Jean-Claude Marsan who notes* that the bridge was built by Robert Stephenson with an aim to recreate the Britannia Bridge in Northern Wales about a decade earlier.
... North Wales' Britannia Bridge....
   The Britannia Bridge crosses the Menai Strait, so that explains why streets in the now-demolished Goose Village bore the names Menai and Britannia, with Conway St. undoubtedly being a knockoff of the Welsh town of Conwy. (Forfar St. being the only Goose Village town that bears no connection to Northern Wales).
   The Britannia Bridge was praised as an artistic masterpiece as its stone piers were things of beauty and the four stone lions also added flair with a play poem below reading: "Four fat lions, Without any hair, Two on this side, And two over there."
 Talented architect Francis Thompson, who deserves much of the credit for the Britannia Bridge, did not sign on to help with the Victoria Bridge, the longest bridge in the world at the time of its opening. That was a big loss.
...but should have been built to look like the Brooklyn Bridge..
   Prof Marsan argues that Montreal geography simply did not lend itself to the copy as the St. Lawrence River is much wider than the Menai Strait.
   The Victoria remains an impressive engineering feat but they are not art, he says as the black limestone pillars are the only bit of artistic flair.
   "Their masonry, as well as that of the abutments did not have the distinction, discretion or ingenuity of the Britannia's," says Marsan.
  Marsan said that the Victoria Bridge relied too much on the old world and argues that a more suitable project would have been something like the Brooklyn Bridge.
*Montreal in Evolution 1981 253-254



   
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Montreal bus driver demands envelope laden with cash

December 18, 2014, 10:23 am
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  A female hospital worker hopped off the 161 bus yesterday at Kildare and Caldwell in Cote St. Luc, not far from the Cavendish mall, only to discover an envelope stuffed with cash in the snow.
  As she peered inside the envelope she heard a loud male voice ordering her to hand it over.
  She looked up and who was demanding the envelope full of cash?
  The bus driver.
  The driver had seen the woman swoop up the package and so he aggressively insisted that she hand it over.
   Perhaps in a daze or thinking it was the honest thing to do, she complied.
   That nurse was later kicking herself wondering if it was the right thing to do.
   
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The Lower Main: four great descriptions of old times

December 18, 2014, 12:24 pm
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Four fantastic descriptions of the Lower Main.
Tales from the tenderloin:
 the lower Main through the past darkly

1940: Paint magnate Phil Chamber started selling newspapers as a 12 year old in 1939 "The sailors would get off the boats at the wharf and walk up to St. Catherine where the hookers would charge $2 rather than $1 charged by the girls down the hill. There were some bad guys who’d rob their banks in the east end but they wouldn't cause trouble here because this was home territory. Every once in a while some asshole decided to clean up the Main, they’d move the hookers off the street for a couple of weeks but they’d be back because the cops wanted the graft. "A suck and fuck for a buck."

1955 Legendary Night Squad cop Bob Menard. “I used to work undercover go down there, it wasn't fun and games, there were pickpockets and thieves. If you’d walk around and ask to be whacked, they’d whack you. Street cops spent their eight hours kicking ass down there because they had to. You had to protect the tourists, they had the right to get a hot dog.”

1960. Norman Olson, former publicist and gossip columnist. “West of the Main you’d have all the factories and the moment twilight hit and all the clothing
workers went home, all the kids and perverts and tourists would come out. Near that block you had the Hi Ho and the Casa Loma and Vic’s Café, run by Cotroni. It was a higher class joint because they’d charge 10 cents to get in. The place had two-hour vaudeville acts with jugglers, singers, sword swallowers that would end at seven in the morning. I remember coming out of there with Eartha Kitt and seeing people going to work and storekeepers opening up their awnings. It was like a stage, as the lighting changed, the city changed, it underwent a daily metamorphosis, at twilight all the lights and flickering lights and hoors and transvestites came out and this other world began.”

1967 Author and local landmark expert Alan Hustak: “It was really, really seedy.
A big attraction of the block were three repertory theatres on the block, where the unsavory of the unsavory gathered. They’d charge 25 cents for three movies, it was dark and the balconies were isolated and people weren’t really going there to see the movies. Next door the Midway was the setting for Hosanna, the famous Michel Tremblay play about a biker and a transvestite. The strip was a gathering of longshoremen, drag queens, prostitutes, and high culture people from Place des Arts. It wasn’t threatening but there was always the sense that if you looked at somebody the wrong way they might punch you.


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Lower Main peep shows closed down

December 20, 2014, 10:04 am
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A local peep show complex which has long screamed screw you to advocates of cleaning up the Lower Main has closed.
    The peep show was a haven for perverts and prostitutes who would cruise up and down little closed cabins where men would sit watching porno films.
    I once wrote a freelance article for the local English daily about how there was a strange co-habitation between young kids playing video games upstairs and perverts and junk-riddled hookers prowling around the same joint and below.  The Journal de Montreal copied it for a full front page spread the next day. The video games were removed long ago.
    The Lower Main has long been disputed territory in the heart of this city as many top city officials have pushed for the area to be gentrified while others - including myself - believe that the market should dictate what should become of the area in an organic way and if that means keeping the area true to its longstanding gritty roots, then so be it.
    The central turf in that battle was Cafe Cleopatra whose owner Johnny turned down many purchase offers and threats to expropriate his property.
   The now-demolished west side of St. Lawrence between St. Kit and Dorch -  long controlled by the Goulakos family - was slated to be turned into provincial government offices under a deal struck between friend-of-the-PQ Christian Yacciarni and then-PQ-minister-of-something Jean-Francois Lisee but that costly deal was nixed by the incoming Couillard Liberals.
   Worth noting as well that the longtime ownership of the Midway changed last spring and a younger crowd has replaced the dive-bar set.
    We will endeavour to find out more details concerning this new vacancy. Apologies for the poor photo taken yesterday. You'll note that the holes in the facade reveal that the buildings are stubbier than they appear.
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Quiz - what happened here?

December 20, 2014, 3:10 pm
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   One of the biggest disasters in local law enforcement history took place at this corner during WWII.
   Can you name the place and the event?
We have a correct answer. Quiz over. Congrats to the winner! A thousand monkey kisses your way.



Douglas Perreault, Donald Perreault, Noel Cloutier
 On Sept 24, 1948. Douglas Perreault, Donald Perreault, and Noel Cloutier were robbing a bank at St. Just and Notre Dame, quite a distance to the east of the downtown Montreal core.
   Cst Maurice Demonceau was standing near a soda fountain at St. Juste and Notre Dame.
    Restaurant owner Albert Pitchot told him to look across the street.
    Two men with masks and dark glasses were hiding in a car. It was clearly a bank robbery in progress.
  The problem was that Demonceau didn't have his gun. So he went to his nearby home to fetch his weapon.
   The wheelman motored off, leaving his two buddies inside.
   Two cops, Nelson Paquin and Paul Emile Duranleau came to the scene to deal with the cornered criminals.
   Brothers Douglas and Donald Perreault gunned them down dead.
  Nelson Paquin, who lived at 1475 Overdale. Paquin was hit five times.
   Duranleau four times. Both were shot in the heart.
  The getaway car was a 1941 Cadillac, driven by  Noel Cloutier, 24, was cornered in a laneway between Aird and Sicard.
  Cops blamed lax bail rules for the killing and those were tightened within days. The brothers remained on the lam for a while but were eventually caught in Taber Alberta. All three were hanged in Montreal on March 11, June 17 and Nov. 25, 1949.
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Red Cross street fundraisers getting on people's nerves

December 21, 2014, 9:05 am
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   Red Cross fundraisers have come under fire for aggressive techniques, a bad habit exposed by what seemed like an innocuous Facebook status update.
   Here's the original post followed by five complaints and then finally, a response.

Here's the thing, Red Cross: I respect what you do as an organization but after having waved off your street team members in the metro twice, what gives them the right to block my access to the turnstiles and then call me out for ignoring them?! That's sure to gain support. Good day, sir!

1-was actually verbally assulted by one of the guys who practically live at vendome, trying to shame me for avoiding eye contact and ducking as he practically tackled me. theyre vicious!!
2-On Ste Catherine Street too, they are very agressive... pissing me off...
3-they're really starting to remind me of the SPA Canada street team which was just awful.
4-their street teams are the worst - aggressive, rude, pushy...they're not doing the organization any favours
5-dude they're so rude! i was texting on my way out of the metro a little while back and the girl was like HEY HOW ABOUT YOU GET OFF YOUR PHONE AND LOOK UP AT ME in the rudest tone. yeah that's how to get me to donate.

To their credit someone from the Red Cross responded on the very same thread:

I work as an instructor trainer for this organisation - this is NOT the image we want to portray. I love the Red Cross, and everything they do. Please do not let overzealous volunteers put a damper on all their good works. If you feel harassed, please call 514-362- 2930 and speak to customer service!
Thanks for the heads up!
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Denis Delaney, the heart of old Griffintown, dies

December 23, 2014, 6:36 am
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   The great Denis Delaney has died.
    Delaney was the quintessential lively Irishman from below the hill and once enthusiastically told me the true story of Neptune's broken leg, which I wrote about here.
  I spoke to Delaney once about old Griffintown, which is being totally rehauled now.
    Delaney, born in the Griff, blamed Catholic brass for the abandonment of the well-located downtown-adjacent area.
  It happened in 1970 when St-Anne’s church was demolished.
   This is what I wrote in an interview I did something like a decade or 12 years ago.
   “The Catholic Church decided to get of either St. Anne’s in Griffintown or St. Patrick’s Basilica and even thought St. Patrick’s is impressive, it wasn’t an obvious choice, because Ste. Anne’s was well attended. Busloads of people would come down to the Tuesday devotions to visit the picture of Mother of Perpetual Health, it was said to cause miracles. Even my mother used to say that it did something for her but she never told us what it was.”   Delaney, who now lives in Westmount, frequently rides his bike down to the old area to reminisce about his youth.
   “The canal was our summer resort. I’d say about six or seven kids drowned there when I was growing up. There was the Oka Sand barge that would park down there, it was basically a big rectangular thing with a big pyramid of sand on it, we’d climb up the sand and dive off. One time a kid swam against the other side of the barge but it moved against the wall and he couldn’t get out.”
“We’d dive off the Black’s Bridge at Wellington and dive to the bottom of the canal and grab a handful of silt from the bottom and show the other idiots this stuff, that was probably highly polluted. Every spring they’d empty the canal and find old cars and occasionally somebody who’d been murdered.”
   Delaney also confesses to his role in the mysterious disappearance of Neptune’s bronze Leg. “One day we were playing in the fountain beneath the statue of John Young and we knocked off the leg by accident and we ended up hiding it on a cart and bringing it to a metal worker who gave us $1.85 for it as scrap metal.”
Although the memories are sweet, Delaney also remembers how heat and food were luxuries, while hot water was unheard of. “These homes had only one tap, it was the cold water tap in the kitchen.” Delaney, however, has no doubts that the area will eventually be the “next Westmount.”
   But the old Griffintown is gone, never to return. “I used to hear this song since I was about five years old.”
    He sings: “Take me back to Giffintown Giffintown Griffintown, that’s where I long to be – where my friends are good to me – Hogan’s bath on Wellington Street where the Point bums wash their feet - Haymarket Square I don’t care anywhere - for its  Griffintown for me.”
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Memoir of Midnight - draft dodger penning his life as a Montreal tabloid hack

December 23, 2014, 4:30 pm
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   I've been reading Joseph Glazner's excellent unpublished fish-out-of-water coming-of-age manuscript Midnight, John Lennon and Me on his life in Montreal, arriving here from California as being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.
   Glazner's tale has all sorts of insights into the mood of the city at the time as well as his desperate efforts to survive in Montreal in the late 60s and early 70s, a city where he knew almost nobody.
   He recounts his efforts at selling posters for a Swiss guy in Old Montreal before getting a gig punching out stories for the Midnight tabloid.
   Glazner also got to know my father, who he describes as being instrumental to the old Sunday Express newspaper.
   I'll give you more news when the book comes out.
   Meanwhile here's a small segment in which he deals with my father Colin Gravenor who had a role in Montreal's Sunday Express, which founder Joe Azaria sold to the Peladeau empire for $500,000 in November 1974.
 
***
Colin was Colin Gravenor. Colin had been a public relations man for local and visiting celebrities and bluebloods in Montreal. He had also been a part-time writer in the early days of Midnight while he dabbled in real estate. He had made his first fortune in real estate, hitting the jackpot in the mid-1950s, and turning himself into a millionaire as a middleman who had turned a near useless, windswept island in the St. Lawrence River into one of Montreal’s trendiest new suburbs. He had now rejoined Joe as managing editor of The Sunday Express.  
***
Colin Gravenor, the real estate tycoon and public relations genius, had commandeered an empty desk at the back of our editorial bullpen.
After Colin arrived, a steady stream of new faces showed up almost daily, some coming and going, and others taking over empty offices and nearby desks.
Colin was a few months shy of his fifty-ninth birthday, a year older than my ailing father.
By the time I crossed paths with Colin, he was on his second wife and second set of children. He was living in a large home on Grosvenor Avenue on the hill in Westmount, the premier neighborhood in the downtown.
   Colin Gravenor was still riding high from his earlier real estate successes but looking for a new adventure. The job of managing editor of the Sunday Express for Joe was perfect.
   I watched as Colin threw himself into the job with great gusto. When he wasn't on the phone and scribbling notes or talking with someone sitting in the chair beside his desk, he was pounding away at his typewriter, churning out stories.
   Like a linebacker who had gone somewhat soft around the waist in middle age but nevertheless still had the game in his blood, Colin was both a father figure and an intimidating warrior with thick eyebrows over small, narrow, piercing eyes, and a small moustache over an equally small mouth set in a square, jowly, determined jaw. 
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Joe Azaria's missing manuscript

December 24, 2014, 4:26 pm
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  Time to salute a great Montreal entrepreneur who brought glory - and shame - to this city and also time to ask whatever happened to the book he promised to write?
  More at the end of this little bio.
Joe Azaria was born a Jesuit in Iraq in 1929, he moved to Lebanon at 10 and then on to Canada at 19 and worked as a waiter as a resort in Ste. Agathe, the same job featured in Duddy Kravitz.
   He dreamed of being a reporter, a plan shot down when the Montreal Gazette declined to hire him in 1954.
   So he took $16 and some credit from a printer friend and hired editor John Vader for the lofty sum of $10 a week and launched Midnight.
   The paper floundered until somebody realized that it might sell in the United States. Soon the scandal sheet had 520,000- 750,000 (depending on your source) weekly readers, nine of 10 being in the USA.
   He bought out four competitors and saw the money roll in.
    I should mention that he was a close friend of my father, who played such a central role in the early years of the tabloid that many assumed it was his paper.
   Azaria grew tomatoes on the roof of the company's office at the southeast corner of St. Catherine and Mackay and even kept ducks, which the receptionist was required to walk.
   Several aging scribes have reminisced on their days at the paper, including Joseph Glazer, who is working on a memoir of his time there.
   After a few years Azaria sold Midnight to his own company's comptroller Ike Rosenbloom for $4.2 million.
   Rosenbloom renamed it The Globe and it was eventually moved to Florida.
   Meanwhile Azaria and founded the Sunday Express, Canada's first Sunday paper, in 1968.
   Azaria attempted to turn it into a daily in 1971, a project that failed and eventually sold it to the Peladeau Quebecor organization for $500,000 in 1974.
   Azaria also made headlines with his failed attempt to purchase the floundering Life Magazine in 1972 and also dodged a significant lawsuit involving Christine Keeler.
   Azaria also owned America's oldest magazine, the Police Gazette, which was founded in 1845 and moved the operations here from New York City, complete with editor Nat Perlow and faded starlet Veronica Lake, who lived together on Queen Mary. That storied publication folded in 1977.
   Four years after his early retirement Azaria took his $8 million life savings and moved to Pital de San Carlos, 150 kilometres north of San Jose Costa Rica where he grew black pepper on 120 hectares of a 607-hectare tract of rain forest he bought and named Tierra Buena, Spanish for the Good Earth, the name of his favorite novel.
   Azaria lived there with his second wife Laura, going without electricity for many years until finally getting a generator.
   "My famous line to my wife was that in Canada you spend $100 for a candlelight dinner and here you get it every night," he told a reporter.
   He built a village around his land and also returned to spend summers in Canada where he had a 242-hectare forest south of Montreal complete with pheasants and buffalo. He would return summer and spend time with some of his six kids. He eventually sold that farm to Pierre Peladeau, a close friend who helped him as a printer.
   He died in 2001.
  In the 80s he vowed to write a book about Montreal mobsters that he knew.
  We would love to see that manuscript or whatever notes were left. 
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'I was a teen leader of a Montreal biker gang' - the Guy Bouchard story

December 25, 2014, 8:51 pm
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Guy Bouchard had nothing but smooth, open road in front of him in his quest for power as a biker gang leader after being named chief of one of the city's top biker gangs in 1967.
Guy Bouchard Hot Pistons chief, in 1969
 As a child Bouchard was dazzled by the biker gang that growled their way down the streets near his home in Rosemont.
  He was transfixed by their jackets featuring a logo with intersecting pistons and the word Montreal Motorcycle Club beneath.
   "I remember seeing them around 1963 driving along Beaubien, I was very impressed. Those guys were my idols," he said.
   Soon Bouchard and his friend Robert Bonomo started motoring down on their small scooters to the Hot Pistons clubhouse on Hochelaga.
   As Bouchard grew, so did his motorcycles as did his influence within the gang.
   By 1967 the club soured on its leader and needed to pick a new boss.
 "They wanted a leader who wasn't drunk or stoned. About 95 percent of the members voted for me and at 17 I became the youngest biker president anybody had ever heard of."
  At its peak the Hot Pistons had about 125 members but Bouchard concedes that the active membership during his time was about 40.
   During his reign the gang would convene at their clubhouse in a basement apartment on Bellechasse between Iberville and Delorimier.
 Bouchard had a job making purses at a leather factory but being president of a biker club was like another full time job, overseeing finances, hierarchies, initiations but no criminal acts were asked of those who joined.
   "But if we saw someone seemed scared or ran at the sign of conflict, or chatted too much, then we'd kick him out," Bouchard tells Coolopolis.  
   "These guys weren't all angels, some robbed banks or other places but that had nothing to do with us. They didn't wear the logo when they did it. We weren't a criminal organization," he said.
Bouchard is now a proud father
  The Hot Pistons had company in Rosemont, as the Popeyes and Devils Disciples also rolled around those streets and the two had started a small war in 1966.
  Bouchard, whose gang had nothing to do with the friction, was nonetheless frequently questioned by police.
  "I was often harassed by police. They'd ask if so-and-so was in my club or if I knew who it was. But we didn't even allow drugs in our clubhouse. Back then drugs were sold by hippies and it was all hash and a bit of LSD, but bikers didn't deal drugs and we didn't have it in our clubhouse."
   Bouchard befriended some well-known villains along the way, including Yves "Apache" Trudeau, who headed the Popeyes before going on to become one of the province's most prolific hit men, later confessing to 45 murders after turning informant.
   "We spent a lot of time together and we'd talk about stuff just like anybody else. He was always very nice to me but he had eyes like Charles Manson, you couldn't trust him too much."
   One day in 1968 Bouchard was waiting for a female friend to visit.
   But when he answered the door it was the police who arrested him on charges of concealing stolen goods.
   Police questioned him for 10 hours in a police station on Masson, then put him in Parthenais for four days to await arraignment.
   Bouchard has never eaten meat since his childhood - an aversion which he describes as an "allergy" - so he was practically starving after a few days of harsh questioning by police and unwelcome sexual advances by hardened inmates.
   "It was a shock to me."
  He was broken and was ready to plead guilty even though he knew he was not.
  Just as he was leaving to face a judge, Bouchard had to leave the jail to fetch his brown paper bag full of his personal items.
   "It was about 3 a.m. and a guard, a young guy about 25, took me into an empty cell to talk with me. He said, 'I've looked in your file and they have no evidence against you. Plead not guilty.'"
   Bouchard did just that and the judge gave him a mere $100 fine without a criminal conviction.
   "I think of that guard as my guardian angel," said Bouchard.
   "Let's just say prison didn't agree with me. Later on I saw the officer who had so cruelly treated me during that long questioning and when I asked to speak to him you could see he was scared that I'd yell at him. Instead I just said 'thank you.'"
   Bouchard said that even back then he knew a scared straight program exposing delinquents to prison conditions would be a winner because that very exposure had set him on the right path.
   After that ordeal Bouchard was still, nonethleess, head of the Hot Pistons.
    When police called for a sit down with four of the gangs in February 1969, Bouchard showed up in good faith hoping that all parties would learn to get along.
  The Popeyes and Hot Pistons said they would be willing to participate in a new program which would see the city offer a shared facility to the four clubs.
   The Devils Disciples and Satan's Choice walked out out of the meeting with police officer John Delzell.
   The land that the city had put aside on Sherbrooke St. E. came with a nice paved surface for motorycle feats, facilities for members to build their own clubhouses and even paid electricity.
   "The bikers came for about a week but they figured it was a way for the police to better spy on them so they stopped going," said Bouchard.
   About two weeks after that meeting Bouchard attempted to broker peace between the two feuding gangs at a meeting he set up at Champlain Bowling on Iberville.
   But the two gangs showed up armed and both suspected Bouchard - who was entirely unarmed except for his good intentions - of setting them up.
   Police jumped in quickly, however and no harm was done.
   Trudeau put the word out that Bouchard was not to be blamed for the meeting going wrong or by the sudden appearance of police.
   But by this point the bad experience in jail and the other headaches had him re-evaluating his life on a Harley.
   Bouchard then had some other life-changing news: his 16-year-old girlfriend told him that she was pregnant on June 13, 1970.  Less than a month later he married her.
   He sold his bike and met everybody from his gang at one last evening and told them that he was gone and they would not be welcomed at his new home.
   "I knew what sort of things could happen. I'd seen bikers put things into the drinks of women," he said.
  Yves "Apache" Trudeau told Bouchard that he'd be welcomed back at a high position if he ever decided to return to the gang but instead Bouchard went on to a straight life working a variety of jobs,  raising a family of three and eventually retiring from a longtime job as superintendant at a condominium complex.
Gilbert Groleau
   Bouchard's childhood friend Bonomo eventually became an early member of the first Hells Angels chapter in Quebec. He was the only friend Bouchard kept in touch with, but the two kept a strict rule of never discussing illegal business. Their friendship ended in the mid-90s when Bonomo was accused of some heavier crimes.
   The Hot Pistons also eventually disappeared and its members either found other occupations or joined other more criminalized biker gangs. One former Hot Piston who made headlines was Gilbert Groleau, a tiny 5'0" biker who later organized a bomb scare to bring attention to bad prison conditions at Bordeaux Prison in 1976. Groleau attempted to speak to Claude Poirier of CJMS but the bomb went off and he was killed near the Voyageur bus terminal.
  "It was a mistake for me to take the presidency of the Hot Pistons," said Bouchard. "I'm not the kind of guy to play with guns and knives and never much liked drugs or drinking but I think that's what also what they liked about me."   
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Duff Court: a history of crime

December 26, 2014, 4:35 pm
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    The 2,000 residents of 1,2000 apartments in Duff Court, Lachine know of the bad reputation their area has earned throughout the years.The area, which consists of eight identical buildings put in the 1960s in the area bounded by 14th, 24th Aves, Duff Court St. and Highway 20 to the north, has apparently cleaned up its act.
   At least it seemed to have until last week's murder.
   Here's a chronicle of crime from the area. (Many of these events occurred the day prior from the date listed).
23 December, 2014: A 24-year-old man, known to police, was found shot in a car at Duff Court and Roy Crescent (there are actually two intersections with that name). He was rushed to hospital where he died some hours later.
2 Nov. 2012: A man, 30, was hit in the head with a sharp object at 1500 Duff Court. He would not tell police who did it.

27 Dec. 2010: A man was found shot at the corner of 24th and Duff Court at 12:40 a.m. but survived his injuries. The perpetrators fled in a white car.
Gordon the drunk
2007-2008 Locals post videos of a Duff Court drunk named Gordon to YouTube. Videos include one where he gets pelted on the head with an egg. 1,2,3.
4 March 2005: A seven-year-old child lit a mattress on fire, causing a blaze that damaged several floors of the housing complex.
18 March 2004: A 20-year-old homeless man was forced in to psychiatric care after been seen caressing himself in front of tenants. He had also urinated in the halls. His parents from the South Shore hadn't heard from him for six months.
25 May 2003:  Jean-Guy Lamarre, 35, was killed at around nine pm while fighting with his 47-year-old friend, who lived two floors over, in a drunken brawl. The friend was charged with murder.
7 May 2003: Two men were arrested for breaking into coin laundry machines in four buildings on Duff Court in April. Other similar robberies ensued even after the suspects were detained.

31 Oct. 2002: Someone lit a couch on fire in the stairwell in the basement of a 40-unit building on Duff Court.
17 Oct. 2002: A male suspect broke into three cars inside a garage a Duff court apartment. He was white, about 20 and 5'11”.
15 Aug. 2002: Police issued an alert for a man, aged about 50, who got a nine year old and a 13 year old girl in to his car where he masturbated in front of them. Both ran away. He drove an older model pickup truck and lured the girls by asking for directions. He spoke English, wore glasses and jean shorts.
14 Sept. 2001: Melissa Wilisky was shot to death at the corner of 24th and Duff Court at 12:50 a.m. She was shot nine times in the back while returning to her home at 893 24th Ave. She owed a small drug debt to Darryl Maighan, who was shot dead two years later in Lachine by Crozel "Cozy" Cobbler, the Goodfellows street gang leader who was caught and convicted.
2 April 2001: A woman was slashed in the face with a box cutter, or exacto knife by three youths. Witnesses were too terrified to report the young men who did the deed.
7 Dec. 2000: A 31-year-old man set off a series of fires outside the Subway, Au coin de Feu Brasserie and several buildings in the Duff court area because he was distraught that nobody would give him a job.
23 Nov. 2000: Two youths were arrested after mugging a 17-year-old boy. One put his knife to the boy's throat and the other took the wallet. The perpetrators were known to police. They were found on Duff Court, one was 19, the other 16. A similar robbery had been committed one day earlier a block away.
16 March 2000: Thieves broke into laundry rooms of nine apartment buildings and stole the money from the washing and drying machines. The thieves used crowbars and screwdrivers to grab the $30-$50 in change from each machine.
11 May 2000: A man doused the floor of a Duff Court building with gasoline and set it at 2270 Duff Court. Tenants were evacuated.
22 Dec. 1999: A man with his head covered attacked a 10-year-old girl at the Axep store on 14th Ave in Duff Court at 5:35 p.m. He put a knife to the girl's throat and told her not to scream.She screamed and ran away.

16 Dec. 1999: Someone tried to steal a microwave oven from a common room at a Duff Court building. He had forced a basement door open with a crowbar but fled when spotted.
1999 Duff Court resident Richard Goodridge, 29, is seen wearing a T-shirt reading Support Rockers, which police considered proof that he was close to the Hells Angels boss Mom Boucher. A decade later he was described by police as being an important street gang leader.
23 June 1999: Four men of about 18 years of age were walking near 14th and Duff Court when they shot at a man at 6:10 p.m. The victim was hit in the gut but did not want to talk to police at hospital. Witnesses appeared scared and gave conflicting reports.
28 Jan. 1999: Three young people robbed two teens in Duff Court at knife point at 11:20 p.m. On Roy Crescent. One held a 10 cm knife to the throat of his victim. They took money, cigarettes, a bus pass and two Nintendo games and a magazine.
17 Dec. 1998: A thief broke into a home at 4:30 p.m. On 17 Ave. The owner was home sleeping and the thief ran out.
21 Aug. 1997: Three youths put a knife to a 10-year-old boy's belly and asked him for money. The police caught up with three kids, the leader of whom was 14.
24 April 1997: A 52-year-old woman was robbed of the $800 she had won at bingo by a man in his 20s.
 6 March 1997: Five cars were broken into in an interior garage at Duff Court, seven more were stolen from earlier.
25 Jan. 1997: Two men broke into a Duff Court apartment and threatened a man with a baseball bat. Police arrested two 25-year-olds.
5 Jan. 1997: A 31-year-old man ran into a depanneur with a sledgehammer yelling “Joanne! Joanne!” at 11 a.m. He had arrived in a taxi, telling the drive that he'd pay him once he got the money inside. He smashed the cash, took money and cigarettes and fled. Police tracked him down for nine blocks. He sobered up and said he had no memory of what had happened.
19 Sept. 1996: Two armed men held up the Duff Court Grocery at 889 14th oat 10:30 p.m. They got away.
7 Nov. 1996: Police caught a man breaking into an apartment at 3:30 a.m. On Duff Court. The 24-year-old cut his hand badly after breaking a window.
17 Oct: 1996: Jon Yul Lim said that his Epicerie Duff Court at 14 th Ave. was robbed 11 time sin six years, including the most recent robbery where thieves broke in and emptied the place, even taking the cash register.
Jermaine Gero and Toby Condo in recent photos
10 March 1996: Jermaine Gero, 21, and Tony Brian Condo, 24, were charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery and assault causing bodily harm after robbing taxi driver Jacques Brassard at 1:45 pm on a Sunday and punching him in the face until he lost consciousness. He had dropped the duo off at Duff Court near 25th. They fled to an apartment on Louis Pare Ave. They were drunk at the time. They got $12 in the robbery.
2 June 1994: A 20-year-old man was arrested at 34th and Duff Court at 4 am after accepting an invitation to go to the home of a 42-year-old man in Dorval. He stabbed the man as he was lying down listening to music. He cut the man in the chest, abdomen, arms and hands before the five-inch blade fell off. The victim recovered.
6 Jan 1994: A woman, 53, was pushed to the ground while waiting for a bus at 5:45 on Jan 6. in front of 2305 Duff Court.  The three males assailants were about 17.
25 Nov. 1993: A woman was arrested at Duff Court for selling cocaine. She was 29. Police had been tipped off.
21 Sept. 1993: Police arrested a man trying to break into the basement of 2270 Duff Court. He was cornered at 3 a.m.  He was 23.
26 Aug. 1993: A man, 53, was arrested for tossing his Shiztzu dog into a cement wall at Duff Court. He claimed he had lost the dog. It was found under the balcony unconscious. The dog recovered and was put up for adoption.
13 June 1993: A girl, 8, was raped by a blonde ponytailed man. He offered to take her out of the hot sun at about 4 p.m. On a Sunday.  But once inside the apartment building brought her to the basement storage and raped her. The rapist was aged 25-30 and stood about 5'8” and weighed about 160. He wore a gold chain with a concornucopia medallion. And had a gold earring. The little girl's parents were divorced or separated.
20 May 1993: A man, 22, was charged with threatening to kill his girlfriend. Police tracked the call to a phone book at 24th Ave. The man was carrying a baseball bat. He ran across Highway 20 when spotted and hid under the balcony on Duff Court. He swung the bat at an officer but was tackled.
10 April 1993: Three men and a woman were arrested for hashish possession. They were nabbed with 1.5 kg of hash, 50 grams of cocaine, explosives and $20,000 in cash.
22 April 1993: A woman, 78, fled after two men broke into her home. Two men, both 26, one from Duff Court, were caught and arrested.
18 March 1993: A man, 20, and a woman 18, were arrested on drug charges at 8 p.m. in Duff Court. The man faced charges of trafficking marijuana.
19 Nov. 1992: A man was arrested for stealing coins from a laundry room at 2270 Duff Court.
1 Oct. 1992: Kids were warned not to climb over metal posts that cross Highway 20. The kids would crawl through a hole in the fence to the highway, climb metal bars and then scale the highway over the vehicles.
22 July 1992: Kamalatie Murlidhar-Janack, 28, was bludgeoned to death at 2370 Duff Court by her husband Rohan Janack, 34 at 4:30 p.m. He then phoned police to confess from a phone booth on Cote de Liesse soon after the deed. He also called his wife's cousin who came to take care of the woman's three-year-old son who was an eyewitness to the murder. The suspected confessed from a phone booth. The suspect was a McGill mechanical engineering grad who was unable to find work because he couldn't speak French. They were from Guyana and had been having difficulties in their marriage.
3 Feb. 1992: Thieves robbed the Epiceries Duff Court at 7:50. The 42-year-old woman who owns the store was on the phone. They ripped the wire out. They had to escape with lottery tickets only, which were canceled.
22 Nov. 1991: Rita Stewart sued the Montreal police for $64,000 after two officers, Sarto Dugas and Yves Boyer, pushed their way into her home on Aug. 20, 1986. They did not identify themselves as police and they said they wer arresting her without telling her the charge. They asked if she was from Trinidad, Barbados or Haiti. She was a nurse who had since moved ot Winnipeg. She had been chrged with spitting on a woman and or ticket taker at the Vendome metro who had made a racial slur against her and her husband. She was acquitted on that charged.
24 Oct 1991:  A 33-year-old LaSalle man was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight just after getting off a bus in Lachine. “The man had gone to the bank, then took a bus and got off at the stop in front of an apartment building at 2160 Duff Court in Lachine,"Another man, armed with a revolver, approached him, said `Give me your cash' and punched the victim on the arm before running away," Cardinal said. The robber was about 27 years old with brown hair.
18 Oct 1990: A 26-year-old man with long black hair and a jean jacket broke the nose of a bakery truck deliveryman at 9:15 a. on a Saturday morning at Duff Court and 18th. He sought cash but the driver zoomed off.
11 Dec 1990 A 20-year-old Lachine man was arrested when police were alerted to a break-in after a store alarm went off. A rock was used to break a front window of Provisions Duff Court on Dec. 11 on 14th Ave in Lachine. Police arrived at the scene quickly and saw a man leaving the store carrying a green garbage bag. When the man saw the officers, he dropped the bag and started running. Police arrested him on Duff Court at about 3:45 a.m. The bag contained about $1,500 worth of beer, cigarettes and wine.
20 Dec 1990: A taxi driver, 30 was stabbed in the throat with a kitchen knife by two men in their 20s at 18th and Duff Court. He was in stable condition following the attack.
30 Nov 1989: A 25-year-old man was attacked with a baseball bat after he tried to collect a debt. A 24-year-old Lachine man was charged with assault with a weapon after hitting the man in the face and arm with the bat.
13 July 1989:  An armed robber stole $212 from the local depanneur at about 3:30 p.m.. He made a point of cleaning his fingerprints off the door handle upon leaving.
1 June 1989:  A 47-year-old Lachine woman set fire to a mattress and chair in her own Duff Court apartment. A neighbor saw the smoke and called firefighters, who contained the fire inside the woman's first-floor apartment.
25 May 1989: Four teens from Duff Court were caught stealing potato chips from the factory across the highway. "Every year around this time there are chip thefts," a local cop said. The kids crossed the highway wielding chips and cheese puffs from the Humpty Dumpty plant on Norman early on a Saturday. They were caught by CP Rail police crossing the tracks at about 2 a.m. They were also carrying three 35-gram bags of popcorn.
21 May 1987:  A 23-year-old resident of Duff Court drove into a police cruiser who was pulling drivers over to check for drunk driving. He was brought in with twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system.
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Gridlock cop takes motorist down on Cote St. Luc

December 30, 2014, 4:56 pm
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   Every rush hour morning drive on Cote St. Luc near Decarie is traffic hell. The intersection has been overloaded with cars.
   This is partly due to bad road planning as Coolopolis has mentioned elsewhere.
   The situation is so bad that a special police officer is dispatched during the morning rush hour to the corner one block to the west to ensure that the intersection of Coolbrooke/des Orphelins and CSL doesn't get gridlocked.
  That police officer sports a highly-visible orange vest so that he will be seen from afar.
   Motorist Leora Bobrove ended up advancing and blocking the intersection in the morning of March 28, 2013.
Leora Bobrove 
   She later maintained that there was sufficient space to pass if someone wanted to get by.
  Well the police officer on duty that morning saw it differently, so he waved at her to pull over so he gift her with a new ticket.
  However motorist Bobrove believed that the cop was actually a construction worker due to his orange vest.
  She believed that by waving, he was redirecting her down des Orphelinats. So she turned down that street.
  She then realized it was a dead end and scooted back.
  The cop Gabriele Sene wasn't thrilled with that move so he blocked her car with his cruiser.
   Sene thought that Bobrove was attempting to flee, so he attempted to take her key.
   Bobrove resisted to what she thought was a too-aggressive approach and Officer Sene got scratched..
   Sene got police backup officers on the scene who in turn calmed everything down.
   After the dust settled, Bobrove was ticketed and hit with three criminal charges relating to the affair.
    Her lawyer Yann Trignac pleaded not guilty and Bobrove had a day in court in Dec. 2013 and another last June.
   On Dec. 15 a verdict came down: not guilty. The judge chalked it up to simple misunderstanding.
   This judgment was particularly interesting to me. (and I'm sure you'll tell us why - Chimples).
   About five years back I received a ticket from the very same officer about one block away and also challenged it in court. Not only did I get the ticket tossed out but I complained at the Police Ethics Commission that the officer had failed to be able to produce a police badge. We met later at a formally-arranged meeting and the cop Sene shook my hand and apologized.
   Seems like a very nice guy.  
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Montreal geography quiz question

December 30, 2014, 5:26 pm
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Quiz question - where is this?
 I bet you can figure it out.
  But more importantly, what happened to this stretch of road 20,179 days ago?
   
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Did the province steal and neglect Fendall House?

January 3, 2015, 9:44 am
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   Get ready for the true story behind Fendall House at 5333 Decelles, one of the oldest structures in the Snow Coat des Neiges, now owned by Louis Deumie, a psychiatrist from France.
   The city of Montreal announced a decade ago that they had "saved" the 1906-built structure that had been "empty since the early 1990s."
    The city permitted the then-owner to move entire the home over to sit atop a new foundation and permitted him that owner to built a four-unit building alongside the venerable old greystone farmhouse.
   In fact, the provincial government was to blame for the building falling apart.
   Government bureaucrats from the Quebec Curators Office destroyed a document establishing ownership to a 61-year-old caretaker and then allowed the house to fall into extreme disrepair.
   That's what Yvan Chaput, who grew up a Duplessis Orphan claims.
   He told me the details of the story when I interviewed him in 1995.
   As a child Yvan Chaput would wonder about the flaky white stuff outside the window flying through the winter sky. He’d only knew snow through the windows of the St. Jean de Dieu insane asylum (now called Louis H. Lafontaine).
   “I never went out in the snow. The nuns wouldn’t let me outside to play, so I never knew what it was,” said Chaput, who would be 80 now.
   As a Duplessis Orphan, Chaput was a normal child committed to Catholic-run insane asylums to allow the provincial government to get more federal grants.
   “The worst was that I didn’t know when my birthday was. I never knew how old I was. I never went to school. I still can’t read or write,” Chaput told me.
   Later in life Chaput found a home as a handyman for Gertrude Fendall, the last remaining member of a family that once owned large chunks of Cote des Neiges.
   From 1969 Chaput helped maintain Fendall's home at 5333 Decelles. “I never charged her more than $5 an hour. Those were happy times for us.”
   In 1986 Fendall asked him to paint a room in the colour of his choice. He chose blue.
   She then wrote up a codicil, a separate, legal document adding his name to the will that she had written three years earlier.
   He was to inherit her home after she passed away, said Chaput.
   The codicil, which Chaput could not read, was tucked away inside a desk drawer inside the house.
   One day in 1990 Fendall noticed that the 90-year-old Fendall had a cut on her leg,
   “Gangrene was starting, I knew I had to bring her to the hospital or else they’d have to cut it off,” said Chaput.
   “She had never been to a hospital, she didn’t even have a Medicare card. She had never been sick.”
    The officials at St. Mary’s Hospital chose to keep her. She was assigned her to public curatorship. Chaput says there was nothing wrong with Fendall.
    Although in most such cases individuals are returned home and offered home care, authorities refused to allow Fendall to go back, in spite of her protests.
   Within weeks of Fendall’s hospitalization bureaucrats from the provincial public curator’s office emptied her home. Gone were the valuable artwork and antiques, as well as the codicil that Chaput says would have left him the house.
   Chaput’s efforts to have her returned home and find out what became of her belongings fell on deaf ears at the famously unaccountable Public Curator.
   That winter the curator’s employees neglected to heat the home.
   Pipes froze and burst, ruining the wood on the floors and plaster on the walls. In the months before her death in 1995 the curator sold Fendall’s historic family home to Andrée Ballard for $200,000. Fendall never knew that her home had been destroyed.
   “I never told her that all her things were taken away and her home was ruined,” says Chaput.
   Developer David Owen obtained an option to demolish the home and build condos but a preservationist group led by Pierre Ramet pressured the city to keep the structure.
   When I interviewed him in 1995 Ramet told me that it was unclear whether the new administration will allow the building to stand.
   Chaput moved to a nearby basement apartment and saw the home every day after it fell apart. “It’s a wreck, it’s disgusting, the whole thing makes me sad,” he said.
   I have not spoken to Chaput since 1995 and do not even know if he's still alive. 
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Teresa Duncan's quest for wealth

January 5, 2015, 12:09 pm
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  Westmount's Theresa Duncan was born in 1923 and by the time the war was finished she decided that she needed to be proactive about hooking up with a man with a solid income.
   So in 1947 Duncan - then 24 and working as a typist for the War Assets Corporation- wrote to a federal MP asking for a list of Canadian bachelors earning $100,000 per year.
   That would be about $1 million a year in today's money.
   Duncan had heard that there were 67 men earning that much and she definitely wanted to get to know one of them in the aims of persuading a coupledom.
   Her letter to CCF MP A.M. Nicholson was fruitless, as government didn't have any such information to send her.
   Undeterred Duncan, a 5'6" brunette, persuaded a Montreal reporter to use a daily newspaper to pimp her to help in her quest for a "moderate income man."
   She quite reasonably lowered he standards to accept a bachelor whose income doesn't exceed the $100,000 mark but "crowds it."
  Applicants were welcomed to contact her at 1384 Greene, presumably where she lived.
   "Sure I'm willing to exchange a typewriter for a super deluxe apartment with a built-in kitchen but what girl wouldn't?" she said.
   We'd love to know if Duncan ever managed to find her man. She would be like 91 is she's still got time on her clock. 
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Welfare recipient outsmarts bank robber at Park and Sherbrooke

January 7, 2015, 2:02 pm
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Coolopolis interns created this image 
  Chimples* has once again urged me to green-light his article on what he calls a Great Montrealer.
  Dinh Tri Nguyen would be about 61 now.
 Dinh Tri Nguyen, then 27, was cashing his $355 monthly welfare cheque at Park and Sherbrooke on July 30, 1981 when in walked an escaped convict named Roger Poirier (he didn't tell them his name right away, they had to work to figure that out).
   Poirier, 43, was eight months on the lam after fleeing a murder sentence at the Leclerc Institute.
   He burst in brandishing a shotgun and a bomb and ordered everybody to the floor.
 Nguyen complied and attempted to analyze the robber's behaviour by testing how he'd respond to a request to get a sip of water.
   He was given permission.  Nguyen then asked the robber Poirier if he could fetch his guitar.
   Poirier said yeah sure whatever.
   And then for act three Nguyen - who by now had decided that the bomb wasn't real - got up without permission, as if doing some other useless task and instead leaped on the robber.
   Poirier overpowered the smaller Nguyen and shot him twice.
    Meanwhile a bunch of other hostages leaped in and intervened, slamming Poirier with staplers and other office items.
   Nguyen, even after being shot, persuaded them to stop wailing away at the armed man.
   Being shot twice didn't prevent Nguyen from describing the ordeal in great detail to a reporter, while also pleading with someone to give him a job, which ultimately led to employment in a north end clothing manufacturer.
   The bankers' association gave Nguyen $5,000 as a reward.
   When he went to the bank to pick up his reward cheque, Nguyen missed another bank robbery, which occurred five minutes earlier. Yep, he missed his chance at double glory.
   Ngueyn denied that he was a hero and called himself "a chicken."**
     If anybody knows what became of Dinh Tri Nguyen please let us know so we could bestow upon him Coolopolis' highest honour.   *For those who keep asking the receptionist at Coolopolis Towers to meet Chimples: "he's not here." For quite some time Chimples has been working alone in a small ship in international waters due to questions about the legality of keeping a simian who has been implanted with an super intelligence chip in his brain. He's ok with it.
**There appears to be no truth to the recently-generated  rumour that the character named Sticks in the 1991 film classic Out for Justice was based on Nguyen's feats. 
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Who stole Brother Andre's heart? We think we know

January 12, 2015, 1:48 pm
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   A thief - unidentified still to this day - stole Brother Andre's heart from its marble pedestal beneath the basilica of the St. Joseph's Oratory on Thursday, March 16, 1973 at about 5 p.m.
  The thief picked three locks on an iron gate that surrounded the heart which sat on a pedestal that had no alarms.
   Church officials noted that the heart had no market value and initially hoped that it was just a college kids' prank.
   But someone rang up the Journal de Montreal and threatened to destroy the heart unless they were given $50,000. The caller, a francophone, directed them to a car parked at Cremazie and Drolet where a roll of film was found containing photos of the heart.
   Father Marcel Lalonde of the Catholic Holy Cross Fathers rejected the demand.
   The church denied reports that it received a flood of donations aimed at speeding the return of the glass-encased relic of Andre Bessette.
   The story made headlines around the world. Many ascribed the theft of the blood pumping organ to separatist bandits.
   The crime captured the imagination of the city: The Vehicule Gallery on St. Catherine just west of the Main devoted an exhibit to the theft.
   Artist Stephen Lack was one of the contributors:
 Alan "Bozo" Moyle and Frank Vitale wanted to do an art show celebrating the kidnapping and ransom of the heart. It was an open call and there were amazing and scandalous works, the most memorable being on a table of smaller pieces, a heart of a cow obtained from a butcher shop, wrapped in plastic wrap and positioned in a baseball mitt. Over the two weeks of the show the raw heart birthed maggots.
   Another was a life sized crucifix with a vibrating erection that someone put a ladder against and climbed the ladder to give the crucified a little oral to aid in the dispatch to the other side.
   One of my contributions was a large sized black garbage bag tied to the upper railing of the gallery in a way that made it heart shaped, and then spray painted red and topped with gold sprayed styrofoam worms.
   Meanwhile the oratory learned to do without the heart, as Christmas passed without the familiar item near the crutches discarded nearby by miraculously-healed believers.
   Just days before Christmas 1974 police received a tip from lawyer Frank Shoofey who directed them to a house in southwest Montreal where cops recovered the heart in a basement. (I'm trying to get the exact address).
   No arrests were made. The heart was returned to its spot on Saturday December 21, 1974 after 645 days.
Who did it?
   Separate sources have fingered the same person to Coolopolis. I will not reveal the name here now.
   "Small time hood. Small nasty looking guy with a big mouth who was involved in several rapes."
   The heart-stealing bandit was no angel. He shot a guy to death in a bar. Another would-be victim survived by playing dead. His son turned out to be a convicted killer too.
   The reputed thief was an anglophone from Point St. Charles and hung out near Cavendish and St. James. He had friends in the West End Gang.
   The idea of stealing the heart was not so much to get the ransom but rather to use it as a bargaining chip.
Shoofey
   So for example, if the criminal were to be arrested, his lawyer might suggest that police could be made to look gloriously brilliant by recovering the heart, in an informal return for lighter punishment, all very tit-for-tat.
   We will probably never know if police cut the individual or someone else in the West End Gang some slack in return for the return of the most sacred heart.
   One possibly Irish Mafia-related event that took place during that period was the murder of a Montreal police officer by a Boston fugitive named John Connearney in Lasalle on June 14, 1973. Connearney was cited in one report as living in an apartment at St. James and Harvard, then primo-WEG turf.
   There's no proof that Connearney was in with Montreal's Irish Mafia or if the heart was used in negotiations for him or any other situation but it's tempting to speculate.
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Richard Matticks of the West End Gang: dead of cancer

January 13, 2015, 9:22 am
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Coolopolis has learned that West End Gang leader Richard "Ritchie" Matticks has died of cancer at the age of 78.
    Matticks is considered the leading member of the clan that controlled the illicit entry of drugs into the port.
   On Tuesday Matticks was in the hospital surrounded by loved ones and battling against what I'm told is lung cancer, which only started plaguing him badly only over the last few months.
   He succumbed early Wednesday morning at 4:30 a.m. .
   Matticks was raised in Goose Village in a house full of 14 kids. He went on to work in a variety of jobs, including repairman at the port.
   In recent years he has been seen as the co-leader of the Matticks faction of the West End Gang along with brother Gerry, who recently spent several years behind bars.
  Richard was pre-deceased by brothers Jackie "Smiling Jack" Matticks, a onetime leader who died of natural causes long ago. His son Barney died of heroin in Asia and another brother Fred died in 1981 of natural causes.
   Some claim Richard could not read nor write but he was nonetheless considered a savvy operator and some even believe that he accumulated great sums of hidden wealth.
   For a while the clan even organized Christmas parades in Point St. Charles.
   Attempts to prosecute Matticks often proved counterproductive, as seen in the Matticks affair of the mid-90s when the provincial police were seen as tampering with evidence.
    Here's one of countless anecdotes that has been kicking around attesting to influence Matticks maintained. About 15 years ago of his lieutenants John McLean purchased a white SUV but a bureaucratic issue led to the car not being insured.
   Of course the SUV was stolen and the Boomerang locating device went dead somewhere in Laval on its way to the chop shop. Richie made a few phone and not only was the SUV returned in perfect condition but all of the Christmas presents in the back were still there when it came back. (McLean later became the family's bete noir but that's a story for another day).
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Montreal cop faces punishment after partner fails to corroborate his story

January 14, 2015, 7:13 am
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   When a cop does wrong, his partner is often there to make things easier for him, even when it's not in the best interests of justice.
   One Montreal police officer thrust in this difficult situation recently countered this trend.
   Pierre Hawey's version of a contested event has resulted in sanctions against his partner James Joseph.  
   Montreal police officer James Joseph, who pepper sprayed two men five years ago outside of the Sex d'Or strip club on Decarie will be sanctioned by the Police Ethics Commission after his partner Hawey failed to corroborate his description of a late-night episode involving two men.
   Constable James Joseph blasted Vasilios Kyritsis and Panagiotis Polimenakos with pepper spray on November 15, 2009 at about 3 a.m.
   Joseph said he did it because Kyritsis was acting in an extremely belligerent and possibly dangerous manner towards him. He offered a narrative of events that justified his actions.
   Constable Hawey told the commission that he only heard Kyrtsis make obnoxious comments to Constable Joseph.
   Kyritsis started the evening drinking in Old Montreal with two friends.They ended up at the La Belle Province restaurant where cash was needed. So they walked to a money-dispensing machine at the Pub Pare next door.
   On the way back Kyrtsis and Polimenakos were forced to walk around a police cruiser awkwardly parked near the restaurant.
   Kyritsis, for some unwise reason, decided to berate the officer for his parking technique.
   "It's private property, I don't think what you're doing is right."
   The cop told him, "get lost."
   Kyritsis said "Ok. It's private property."
   Both cops told the commission that Kyritsis told him "fuck you, you don't know who you're dealing with."
   This, perhaps understandably, irritated Joseph who then came out to ask the two men a series of questions. The cop attempted to prevent the men from returning to the restaurant and the situation eventually degenerated to the point where Joseph - without any involvement of his partner Hawey - sprayed the duo.
   An ambulatory eyewitness named Fabian Andrew Spencer-Gibbs (That's a cool name, I want one like that- Chimples) later backed up Kyritsis's version of events.
   Kyritsis was brought to a police jail cell until about 6 a.m. when he was finally told he'd be charged for resisting a peace officer. Four months later he received a letter informing him he'd be charged with assault against Contable Joseph.
   Although it took over five years, the committee finally came down against Joseph whose punishment has not yet been decided.
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