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Vancouver nightlife hit two months after killing of Indian drug dealer

Two months after 26-year-old Bindy Johal, a self-confessed cocaine dealer, was gunned down in a plush night club in Vancouver, the night club violence in this Canadian city continues. Such clubs as Impulse Cabaret, the Palladium and Purple Onion, are not only losing thousands of dollars in lost revenues and beefed up security but also finding it difficult to retain good staff.

"Should we run our clubs by recruiting the staff from the toughest prisons in the country?" asks a club manager, chucking nervously. He knows -- as the police do -- that Johal's killer is at large, and there could be another bloody encounter between Johal loyalists and the killer gang.

Johal, who said he was a small-time drug operator and was turning a law-abiding citizen, was shot in the back of his head at the Palladium Night Club. But police officials are not buying the reformed crook theory -- and they are certainly not buying his description of being a small-time operator.

Johal, who was charged with kidnapping of a Chinese rival drug dealer and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the murder of two Canadian American drug-dealing rivals, loved nightlife. He arrived at the clubs in posh cars, and though he had declared his intention of getting married in India early this year, he was seen with women till the very end.

Even before Johal was shot, there were a number of shootings in the area outside the Palladium. But after the Johal shooting and days of page one coverage in the local newspapers, the club stopped playing the music that attracted young Indian Canadians, resulting in heavy losses.

The recent spate of violence in which a 28-year-old Vietnamese man was killed in a spat with an Indian Canadian last Sunday at Madison's Club is not connected with Johal.

But authorities point out that drugs are causing a havoc in this picturesque part of Canada -- and that many gangs are lead by Vietnamese, Chinese and Indian American men in their early 20s. Even as authorities are getting ready to close down Madison, they know they are fighting a uphill battle against widespread drug abuse.

Last Sunday's shooting made headlines here as it came in the wake of death of Pardip Singh Grewal, 21, stabbed outside Madison's a few weeks ago. The escalation in night club violence is yet another manifestation of social diseases new to the Pacific city, officials say.

"The last couple of years has certainly seen a trend in this. It's been a real concern," a police officer said. "We're talking to some of the club owners and they share our concerns."

Though police have discussed with club owners how to improve security, including the addition of hand-held metal detectors and security cameras, they feel helpless as gangsters are becoming more ruthless and brazen.

"You just can't go around closing down one night club after another, can we," asked a police detective.

"It's kind of trendy right now for these gangsters and wannabe gangsters to hang out in these clubs," Detective Andrew told newspapers last week.

"And we're ending up with them clashing when these rival gangs meet in the same place. There's kind of this macho image and they don't want to back down in front of their friends -- and certainly not in front of the women that they bring to these clubs."

While Davies said that not all clubs co-operate with police to help combat the problem, he wouldn't say which clubs were not.

Club managers say they are helpless, too. Having spent millions in making their clubs chic and attractive, they say, they want to stay in business and they are convinced that the clubs can survive and be profitable without drug-traffickers using them.

But the problem, according to one club manager, is that once criminal elements begin attending a club it is difficult to get rid of them.

One of the investors at the Palladium where Johal was shot said most clubs have "theme nights" every day of the week that attract different types of crowds. At the time Johal was shot -- a few days after Christmas -- the Palladium's Saturday night rhythm-and-blues night had become popular among some Indo-Canadian gangs.

The groups would usually show up early in the evening -- by 2200 hours -- filling up the club before other patrons could arrive. "And once a particular group dominates the scene, others feel out of place and tension mounts," he added.

Another club owner suggested that the theme nights send a powerful message to the rival gangs -- they know where to look for their foes, and within a few hours of opening, fights break out, at times ending in death.

Club staff is scared of asking gang members to leave, police and club owners say. Many club staff are still haunted by the shooting of 33-year-old Ted Dixon, a bouncer at Luv-A-Fair in 1991, who was left paralysed after being shot in the back by an 18-year-old who was refused entry to the club.

If an embarrassed kid can be moved to shoot a bouncer, the manager said, staff is understandably worried about angering gang members, the Vancouver Province said in a lead article last week.

"The last thing I'm going to do is get on this guy's bad side," said a club manager. The dozen hotshot night clubs in Vancouver each have over 12 cameras in their video surveillance system, and many have coat checks mandatory on some nights, to make it more difficult to smuggle in weapons. Some like the Palladium take pictures of patrons as they enter the club -- to help pass on information about troublesome guests to others.

But every manager -- and even the police officials -- acknowledge that murders and violence can take place despite all the precautions.

"People know how to smuggle guns and sharp objects," one source said. "And when rage flies all around, bare fists can create a lot of violence."

Though the Palladium had number of video cameras, many of them were not operating the night Johal was murdered. And eyewitnesses to the murder are not speaking.

The hand-held metal detector used by the club is often ineffective as it beeps at every piece of metal, and security men often let people pass without checking the source of the beep, because of the serpentine lines outside the clubs.

And given the popularity of piercing among the club crowd -- with metal studs and rings in every part of the body imaginable -- it is next to impossible to do thorough security checks, a manager of a popular nightspot told reporters last week.

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