Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle by Jerry Langton Page B

close to the city’s Central Business District — Stadnick came from the Mountain. Born to Ukrainian immigrant parents, Stadnick was one of three boys who grew up comfortably in a small, tidy house near a large park.
    Always very small — topping out at five-foot-four or five-foot-five depending on who you talk to — and odd-looking, Stadnick was still very popular. That may well have been because he was a drug dealer. Arrested in 1971 (aged 24) with enough hashish to distribute, Stadnick always had money. After high school, he financed a motorcycle gang for himself and his friends, and he named them the Cossacks.
    From everything I’ve been told, they weren’t all that impressive. They rode small bikes, mostly British in origin and paid for by Stadnick, and they drilled holes in the tops of their helmets and pulled their hair through them — because Stadnick thought it would look cool. “They weren’t a big deal,” Harris said. “Nobody paid them any attention.” Another police officer told me they were the most polite gang he’d ever encountered.
    But over the years, they evolved into a more traditional motorcycle gang. Called the Wild Ones (perhaps in reference to the Marlon Brando movie, but probably not), they switched to Harleys and stopped doing silly things with their hair. And they behaved like the other big-time gangs. Besides drug trafficking, the Wild Ones are alleged to have been in the employ of Hamilton’s Italian Mafia. Although they were careful not to step on important, Papalia-connected toes, the Wild Ones are frequently said to have specialized in bombing bakeries and other businesses whose owners fell behind in protection or loan payments.
    During most of the 1970s, the Wild Ones were seen as also-rans in the Hamilton biker scene. At the time, the city was dominated not just by Satan’s Choice, but also by the Red Devils.
    Said to be the oldest 1-percenter (admittedly outlaw) club in Canada, the Red Devils have a more benign reputation than other big-time gangs. There are other, Hells Angels-allied biker clubs around the world called Red Devils, but they are not related to the Hamilton club, which is proudly unaffiliated.
    Based on the Beach Strip — a very narrow piece of land that connects Hamilton to neighboring Burlington and protects Hamilton Harbour from Lake Ontario’s winds and waves — they are known to keep mainly to themselves. They ride and party and are rarely involved in the sorts of organized crimes law enforcement has come to find commonplace in outlaw biker gangs. They have little time for the politics of the bigger biker gangs, but are generally on positive terms with all of them. “They can party with the Outlaws one night and the Hells Angels the next,” said OPP biker specialist Len Isnor. “They get along with everyone.”
    Before Satan’s Choice became the Outlaws, they were fairly tolerant of the Wild Ones, considering them not much of a threat, sometimes partying with them or even employing them occasionally. But, like everything else, those circumstances changed in the fateful summer of 1977.
    The same factors that made the Outlaws expand to Ontario made Hells Angels desire the province just as much. And, although Stadnick was responsible for the bulk of the Hells Angels expansion in Canada, it did not start with him. That honor belongs to former Popeyes boss Yves “Le Boss” Buteau, who became Hells Angels Montreal Chapter president and Stadnick’s early mentor and champion.
    Buteau had made major inroads with some B.C. gangs who later patched over to the Hells Angels of nearby Washington State before being brought into the Canadian Hells Angels fold many years later by Stadnick. And he had a particular interest in Ontario.
    It made sense. Not only was it physically close to Montreal, but its economy (particularly in and around Toronto) was rapidly surpassing Quebec’s and