Bar and restaurant owners demand financial break to face extortion wave

The group representing bars and restaurants in Quebec are asking the province for a financial lifeline to deal with the growing problem of extortion.

Bar and restaurant owners are losing sleep these days, never knowing if they’ll be the next target of a firebomb.

“We’re seeing some of our members that couldn’t sell their businesses because of the burning and the criminality of extortion, that it’s still going on in Quebec,” said Olivier Hamel, vice-president of the province’s Corporation of Bar Owners.

The industry says security measures and high insurance costs are eating away at their profit margins as competing criminal gangs threaten businesses if they don’t pay protection money.

Cmdr. Francis Renaud from the Montreal police (SPMV) organized crime division says a project called Aurora, launched a month ago, has allowed investigators to monitor gang activities on social media. It has led to 30 arrests so far, with the majority of offenders being between the ages of 14 and 22.

“We were also able to send a lot of information to police forces in other cities” Renaud said.

But there’s been a major shift recently, according to the SPVM. Investigators discovered that many, if not most, youth carrying these crimes rarely get paid by the criminal gangs who recruit them, usually on social media platforms. Yet, they continue doing it anyway.

“One person we arrested admitted to subcontracting 40 attacks,” Renaud said. “He accepted the contract with the left hand, passed it on to the street with the right hand, yet he was paid zero times.”

So why continue?

“They’re after street cred, they do it just for kicks, so they can feel like tough guys and brag about it in chat rooms,” he explained.

Police say it totally changed their optics when dealing with business owners who say they never received any threats before. Bar owners have asked for better cooperation between police, bars and the government to fight the phenomenon.

Public Security minister Ian Lafrenière says he’s investing $150 million dollars in crime prevention, to keep teenagers away from the temptation of crimes.

Some bar owners are even asking the province to lower its percentage taken from video lottery terminals, so bar owners can make-up for lost revenues linked to the crime wave.

“They’re taking money out of our pocket right now and it’s really not a good time with this,” Hamel said.

It’s a situation, he says, that keeps many of his colleagues up at night wondering if they’ll be next.