OFF THE WIRE
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/06/14/18283696.html
Biker denies Outlaws clubhouse set up Claims Hamilton Rd. building just a tattoo business
By Randy Richmond, The London Free Press
The owner of this tattoo and piercing business says London Police are treating it like the headquarters of an outlaw biker gang, the Outlaws. (RANDY RICHMOND The London Free Press) Yes, the building is black. Yes, there is a painting of a white skull on the wall.
And yes, outside sits a Harley Davidson decorated with a small logo of the Outlaws motorcycle club — a white skull and pistons.
It’s also true the owner of the bike and the building’s business readily acknowledges he’s a member of the Outlaws.
But if the building at 328 Hamilton Rd. is an Outlaws clubhouse, it appears bikers like to sit in dentist-style chairs when they gather. And only two at a time.
“The police have labelled it a clubhouse. If I open a sausage stand is that a clubhouse, too?” asked Norman Zeledon, who opened a tattoo and piercing business called La Tinta Latina (The Latin Ink) in a back room of a building that fronts on Hamilton Rd.
Inside the building are a waiting room and two rooms for tattooing. The atmosphere is clean and somewhat clinical. It took him two months and $12,000 to turn the building into a business, but as soon as he opened June 1, police started watching, he said.
“They sit there all day and take photographs,” Zeledon said.
Things got worse when the head of the OPP’s biker enforcement unit, Det.-Sgt. Len Isnor, told media the Outlaws were back in London and had a clubhouse on Hamilton Rd.
Zeledon said one TV broadcast showed his building. Since then, potential customers are afraid to check him out, Zeledon said. He also said his wife is worried rival Hells Angels will believe the police are right and target the business as a clubhouse.
The business has nothing to do with the Outlaws, which he joined about a year ago, said Zeledon, who admits he’s had some brushes with the law.
“I have an opportunity to do something here and the police want to shut me down.”
Police wouldn’t comment on location of an Outlaws clubhouse, but said outlaw bikers should expect to be monitored.
