I’ve know quite a few over the years when I was in the motorcycle biz. They seem to have a warped code of honor. A lot of them were criminals, but hey, they wouldn’t bother you unless you messed with them.
I had a member of a single-rocker club sort of across the street from me once. He was an okay guy, but another neighbor down the road would always call the cops and have them harass him. One time, the cops were shaking him down, and I went out and stood in the street with a video camera. The cops backed off and left. Next day, he comes over to my house and thanked me, and said I would make a good ‘prospect’ in the club. I told him I’d think about (so I lied!), but he was good guy to be on the right side of.
Ran into him a few years later, and he introduced me to a bunch of real rough looking dudes, and told them all I was the only neighbor that was worth a shit.
A biker friend of mine was at a MC house party in California when the police descended. In the house were some fully automatic guns. The owner of the house had two prior felony convictions and the guns were going to put him away for a long time.
My friend had never been convicted of a crime, so he stepped forward and said the guns were his and the homeowner knew nothing about them. Longstory short, he served 3 years of a 3-5(?) sentence.
The homeowner never visited him, never contacted him, not even a thank you card.
Wait a minute-Don’t you think the fact that this isn’t someone you have ever met and that you have nothing to go on but a story told on the internet should have been brought up in the OP? Why did you wait until now to bring it up?
J, and Z if there is such a person, are not reliable reporters of events at best, and probably making it all up or just placing themselves in someone else’s story.
You didn’t do anything wrong by being concerned that this was a real event but you weren’t being a reliable reporter either. You don’t really know these people, that’s important to establish if you are asking for help.
I interpret OP’s sentence fragment “think he’s been dealing in drugs and stripping,” such that “stripping” is an object of the verb “dealing.” That is, “think he’s been dealing in drugs and also that he’s been dealing in stripping,” not “think he’s been dealing in drugs and also that he’s been stripping.” Z thinks (or J thinks) that Z is running strip clubs and thus competing with the Hell’s Angels because they also run strip clubs.
Coldn’t the Hell’s angels figure this out on their own pretty quickly? You can–and should–be furtive when dealing drugs, but a strip club requires a large building with a sign indicating what it is. “Z’s gentleman’s club. Live Nude Girls! Tonight featuring Shawna, Amber and many more.” The angels could probably pretty quickly figure out who owned the place, and would soon realize it wasn’t Z. Also, while the Angels may own a strip club or two, I doubt they’d be that ferocious about protecting a monopoly. I’d think they’d use it to launder money from their drug business, their main source of income.
I certainly agree. I’m a psychiatrist working in an inpatient psychiatric hospital, and I hear stories like the OP’s every day, from people currently experiencing an exacerbation of their schizophrenia, mania with psychosis, or psychoactive substance abuse, always without any evidence, and often accompanied by a relative telling me of course none of it’s true.
I know a lot of people who’ve made really good money and exactly none of them are on the Hells Angels radar. Biker gangs don’t drive around looking for nice houses and Maseratis and assuming they’re into drug dealing.
If this story is true, Z is in fact involved in something bad, and J should leave. Of course, the “paranoid” story would also make sense and is consistent with Z needing a roommate - if Z is so rich why are they splitting rent?
I would assume that dealing in stripping doesn’t refer to owning a strip club but rather to having some pimp-type arrangement with strippers, including possibly some strippers that members of the HA have had or would want to have that same arrangement.
Most such people don’t live in the same neighborhoods as Hells Angels, and also the source of their income is typically obvious. And in this case it’s being alleged that a woman specifically told HA that the guy was invading their turf.
None of the above is to say anything about the veracity of this story. But ISTM that as opinion in this thread is coalescing around the notion that the story makes no sense (or that the guy is paranoid) that some objections are being put forth which don’t hold much weight.
I was thinking he might be talking about stripping parts from cars or motorcycles. But realistically this shady drug-addled dude Z is not capable of any kind of industry on his own that would piss of the Hells Angels, save for outright stealing something from them. And to be clear, pissing off one member of the Hells Angels is not the same as pissing off the Hells Angels. The effect might be the same if you aren’t really big or well armed though.
I’ve never been to Ontario and don’t know how things work there but I’ve known a few strippers here in DC, and that is not how it works here. Strippers work directly for the club. They apply and get paid just like the bartenders and other staff. (I once accompanied a friend to an interview at Camelot. The club comped my lunch while they talked to her, which was nice.) They even pay taxes. They don’t have pimps and club owners wouldn’t deal with them if they did.
@ekedolphin seems reluctant to explain, but I’m going to guess Tripolar may be on to something with stripping cars and motorcycles for parts.
I’m not sure what the point of that article is. The man got his license revoked because he was a member of a criminal organization. He’d probably have his licence pulled even if he was running a regular bar. I don’t know Ontario, but I know there’s no way anyone with known gang ties would get a liquor license here, for any type of drinking establishment, even a sit down restaurant which served beer and wine.
The Angels are no doubt scary violent people. But the point of the OP was that Z isn’t part of anything that has anything to do with them. They are after him because of the word of an angry girlfriend, and the guy isn’t, in fact, dealing.
Also, while thinking of my earlier post, it did dawn on me that there are people who hire strippers out for shows; bachelor parties and the like. But you’d need connections to hire girls and find customers, which it doesn’t sound like Z has.