On a recent Wednesday evening in Kelowna, a row of Harleys was parked outside the Hells Angels clubhouse on Ellis Street.
The biker club was holding its weekly “church” meeting at the clubhouse, despite the fact the B.C. Civil Forfeiture office is fighting in court to get the nondescript stucco building, across from a log yard, forfeited to taxpayers.
The government case to seize the Kelowna, Nanaimo and (Vancouver) East End Hells Angels clubhouses as sites of criminal activity has been winding its way through B.C. Supreme Court for almost a decade.
From The Province:
Lack of ‘criminal’ designation for Hells Angels in B.C. allows biker club to flourish
On a recent Wednesday evening in Kelowna, a row of Harleys was parked outside the Hells Angels clubhouse on Ellis Street.
The biker club was holding its weekly “church” meeting at the clubhouse, despite the fact the B.C. Civil Forfeiture office is fighting in court to get the nondescript stucco building, across from a log yard, forfeited to taxpayers.
The government case to seize the Kelowna, Nanaimo and (Vancouver) East End Hells Angels clubhouses as sites of criminal activity has been winding its way through B.C. Supreme Court for almost a decade.
It started on Nov. 9, 2007, when Mounties broke down the door of the little white building on Victoria Avenue in Nanaimo that housed the Hells Angels clubhouse there.
Cops seized decorative plaques, posters, bar stools and clothing emblazoned with the infamous death’s head logo. They also took Hells Angels documents, including some related to police activities, counter-surveillance efforts and intelligence the bikers had gathered.
A decade and counting
Thus began the legal odyssey that might finally determine whether a B.C. judge believes the Hells Angels are a criminal organization.
The civil trial was supposed to begin on May 1, but was adjourned again until April 23, 2018.
The government’s amended claim against the biker club, filed in March, alleges that if the Hells Angels get to keep the clubhouses they will be used “to enhance the ability of a criminal organization, namely the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, to commit indictable offences.”
The Angels have filed a counter-claim, seeking to get B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act declared unconstitutional.
Police and government officials have long held that the Hells Angels are the most powerful and sophisticated criminal organization in B.C.
Lack of success
But prosecutors have so far been unsuccessful in getting the biker club convicted on any criminal organization charges in this province, despite four separate attempts in B.C. courts in the past decade.
The latest misfire came last year when B.C. Supreme Court Justice Carol Ross dismissed criminal organization charges against Hells Angel David Giles and several associates.
