A B.C. Supreme Court judge has thrown out a bid by the City of Surrey to get a clubhouse rented by the Hardside Hells Angels shut down immediately for violating municipal bylaws.
Justice Ardith Walkem denied a city application for an injunction to stop the property at 18068-96th Ave. from being used by the notorious biker gang for meetings and other gatherings.
The city had argued that there was no need for a full trial on its application because there is no dispute that the Hells Angels are using the residential property as a clubhouse contrary to city bylaws.
But Walkem said that lawyers for the renter, Hells Angel Shannon Rennie, and the owners, Gurbinder Singh Johal and Kulwant Kaur Johal, raised enough issues during a shorter hearing this summer that she has “serious concerns surrounding the terms of the injunction sought.”
“The breadth of the activity the injunction seeks to prohibit, such as holding meetings or conducting activities for a particular group or having signage or paraphernalia for a particular group does, on its face, engage Charter rights,” Walkem said in her reasons for judgment, released online Tuesday.
“On the record before me, such a breadth of activity has not been demonstrated to be prohibited under the bylaw.”
She said it would be more appropriate to have a full trial on the arguments raised by the bikers and their landlords. A 10-day trial is set for March 2025.
Rennie signed a five-year lease for the house in 2018 and then renewed it, paying $3,500 a month. No one lives in the house.
The city first applied for the injunction in January 2020 after a large wake was held at the home for slain Hells Angel Suminder (Allie) Grewal, who was gunned down in August 2019.
Surrey said in court documents at the time that the clubhouse contravenes bylaws and had renovations done without building permits.
And the city cited an earlier event that was “a large gathering of full-patch members, motorcycles, public drinking, increased traffic in the neighbourhood and related social activities.”
Rennie argued in his response to the city’s application that the Hells Angels are simply using the building the same way “a group of youth may gather and call the basement of a home the `Minecraft Clubhouse,’ ” Walkem noted.
“The defendants argue that the City of Surrey’s actions are, in effect, an attempt to use the zoning bylaw to target the Hells Angels for activities that, if done by other groups such as the boy scouts — or a book, bridge or video-game club — would be unremarkable and not targeted for prohibition,” Walkem noted. “The defendants point to the fact that there have been no complaints from neighbours about the use of the property.”
Rennie also argued that Surrey “unjustifiably infringed” on his constitutional right to “freedom of association and freedom of assembly.”
The city said that any form of “socializing and assembly and discussions nonetheless falls outside of the residential use for a single‑family dwelling,” Walkem wrote.
The Hardside chapter was formed in 2017 as the Hells Angels’ 10th in the province. Since then, two of its members have been murdered.
Several Hells Angels chapters in B.C. now rent their clubhouses. Last year, the B.C. Court of Appeal agreed with the Director of Civil Forfeiture that three clubhouses owned by chapters in Nanaimo, East Vancouver and Kelowna should be forfeited to the government because of their links to crime.
“We are satisfied that the inference clearly arises that members’ engagement in unlawful activities was facilitated through access to information gathered surreptitiously at the clubhouses, and protection from surveillance and detection by law enforcement offered by the clubhouses,” the judges said.
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