The provincial government on Friday moved to seize three Hells Angels clubhouses, including one in Kelowna.
Police arrived at the North End home on Ellis Street Friday morning, with similar operations underway in Nanaimo and East Vancouver.
Staff Sgt. Lindsay Houghton with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, the province’s police anti-gang team, says members are supporting local police as B.C.’s civil forfeiture agency carries out a court ruling.
Two months ago, the BC Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision and ruled in favour of the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office, allowing the government to seize the three clubhouses.
The legal proceedings began back in 2007, a year after the Civil Forfeiture Act became law in B.C., with the province seeking to seize the Nanaimo property.
In August 2012, police raided the club's Kelowna clubhouse, and the province began forfeiture proceedings against it and the Hells Angels' East Vancouver clubhouse several months later.
The province successfully argued the three Hells Angels clubhouses would be used in the future to engage in unlawful activity.
"The inference is inescapable that the clubhouses were likely to be used in the future as they had been in the past: to enhance and facilitate their members’ ability to commit unlawful acts," the appeals court ruling stated.
The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General says the provincial government is now on the title of three properties.
In a brief statement Friday, the ministry said the procedure for taking possession and selling the forfeited property is “dependent on the unique circumstances of each case.”
The case could still be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, so the government is declining to comment any further.
— with files from Nich Johansen
