Irish Mob muscles into graffiti removal… ah Montreal

Photo by Jacob Earl

Apparently Montreal’s Irish mob has been making a killing in the graffiti removal racket (see what I did there?).

According to a report by La Presse, members of the infamous West-End Gang took over one of the largest graffiti removal firms in town about three years ago. The former owners of the firm, called AV-NET, owed a substantial sum to John MacKenzie—a man with alleged ties to Montreal’s Irish mob.To square up their debt, the AV-NET owners handed Mackenzie their graffiti removal business as well as O’Neil’s Irish Pub in St-Eustache  the Sûreté du Québec told La Presse.

MacKenzie’s rap sheet isn’t particularly long but the report says he’s been suspected of loan-sharking for some time.

No good Montreal mob story would just end there though. La Presse also reports that AV-NET has been awarded $1.7 million in municipal contracts since 2009.

What a great way to kick off Thursday, I love this city.

If you can read French, you should probably just check out the original story in La Presse by Vincent Larouche (a pretty righteous dude).

While we’re on the subject… D’Arcy O’Connor, who taught a bunch of us journalism and hard living down at Dawson College, wrote a fantastic biography of the West-End Gang.

Batter-up

I was covering the #ggi last Friday when I noticed something kind of awesome.

Members of Montreal’s riot squad use Rawlings catcher’s guards to protect their shins. You’d think they have some sort of black ops military-issued swag but it’s just plain old baseball equipment (I guess you learn more and more about these jokers when you see them on the streets every other day).

Of course, when it comes to the rest of their equipment, they really aren’t fecking around. Each riot cop carries an MK-9 aerosol projector, loaded with a loving spoonful of CS Gas. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being doused with the stuff it’s pretty fantastic.