Loners Motorcycle Club
The Loners Motorcycle Club is an international outlaw motorcycle club founded in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada in 1979. It has seventeen chapters in Canada, eleven chapters in Italy, eleven in the United States, and several chapters in other countries. The club was established by two prominent Italian-Canadian bikers, Frank Lenti and Gennaro Raso.
Early history
The Loners Motorcycle Club was founded in 1979 by Frank "Cisco" Lenti. Lenti first joined the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club and left in 1978. Another reason may have been that an ambitious Lenti never rose above the rank of prospect in Satan's Choice, causing him to leave. Regardless they both decided to leave the Satan's Choice and we're involved in starting a chapter of the Rebels Motorcycle Club in Toronto, this lasted for roughly a year before they decided to form the Loners Motorcycle Club in 1979. Lenti designed the "rather elaborate and bizarre" patch for his club featuring a half-werewolf, half-horned skull creature.In 1981, Lenti was kicked out of the club for a period. It was alleged that Lenti had stolen from the club and was caught, at which point he decided to flee the country to Italy, where he lived for the next two years. With Gennaro Raso's blessing, Lenti officially rejoined the Loners Motorcycle Club in 1984. When Lenti was removed from the club, he travelled to Italy, and continued to use the Loners name despite his removal from the club in 1981. While in Italy, he persuaded other motorcycle clubs to join the Loners. He also opened several new chapters. These chapters were not associated with the official Loners MC until Lenti's return to the club in 1984, when all new chapters were officially recognized. He set up a chapter in York Region, recruiting mainly from his fellow Italian-Canadians as the group normally did. A disproportionate number of the Loners were Italian-Canadians from middle-class families who saw themselves as being more polished and sophisticated than other outlaw bikers.
Lenti has never acknowledged the thefts or removal from his former club. He stated in 2017, it was due to the fact that Satan's Choice member Cecil Kirby turned police informer in 1980. Lenti claimed Kirby told him that he should leave Toronto for a while as he was about to reveal much to the Crown. In 1980, when Kirby told Lenti he was to testify against the Mafia figures who employed him as a hitman, Lenti fled to Italy where he lived for the next two years. However, prominent Canadian journalist Jerry Langton stated in 2006 that Lenti had been booted out of the Loners and had left for Italy until "tempers cooled". When he return to Canada, he joined the Satan's Choice Toronto chapter until leaving in 1984.
At some point during the 1980s the Loners established a chapter in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. However, it would "Patch-Over" to the Alberta-based Rebels MC. This was seen as ironic because both founders of the club had started a Toronto chapter of the Rebels only to leave it and start the Loners. Now they had had one of their chapters patched over by the very club they left.
The Loners International President, Jimmy Raso would also eventually begin to expand overseas, establishing chapters in the United States as well as additional countries in Europe, with his first European chapter opening on 24 December 1985. By the 1990s, the Loners had chapters in Woodbridge, Toronto, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Windsor, London, Amherstburg, Hamilton, and Chatham-Kent. Unusually for a Canadian outlaw biker club by the mid-1980s, the Loners had chapters abroad with one in Portugal and several in Italy, having chapters in Naples, Messina, Salerno, Reggio Calabria, Brolo, Avellino and Isernia. The Loners were a successful club under Raso and Lenti's leadership despite the way that other clubs predictably mocked the Loners as "the Losers". By the late 1980s, the Loners were the third largest motorcycle club in Ontario, being exceeded only by the Outlaws and Satan's Choice. Langton wrote that Lenti was also personally successful in two "industries bikers tend to admire-a stripper/escort talent agency and a tow truck firm".
In 1990, several members of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club patched-over and joined the rival Loners. At this point the Satan's Choice had begun to see the Loners as a serious threat. Over time, the Satan's Choice had lost dozens of members to the Loners. Prominent members included, Frank Lenti, Gennaro Raso and Brian Beaucage, one of the inmates involved killings during the 1971 Kingston Penitentiary riot. Though Beaucage's membership in the Loners was short lived, as by the late 1980s, he had returned to the Satan's Choice, where he became a member of the Kitchener chapter and later its Oshawa chapter.
These patch-overs caused tensions to run high between the two clubs, which would reach a fever pitch with the killing of Brian Beaucage. On March 3, 1991. Full-Patch member of the Satan's Choice, Brian Beaucage had spent the night devoted to drinking, hard drugs and watching pornography with his girlfriend in a Toronto rooming house. In his last years, Beaucage had become addicted to heroin and several members of Satan's Choice, such as Wayne Kelly were planning his murder due to constant issues. That night, Beaucage received a visit from a full-patch member of the Loners, Frank Passarelli. Eventually Beaucage ordered Passarelli out of the room so that he could have sex with his girlfriend. The rude manner in which he did this offended Passarelli, who after a verbal altercation told him: "No one is going to ask me to leave for some girl". Later that same night, he was beheaded in his bed by Passarelli. His body was not found until the next day, being partially devoured by the dogs belonging to another boarder. At the time, the police expressed no surprise about Beaucage's murder, saying he was a violent and disagreeable man, and the only surprise was that it took this long for somebody to saw off his head with a kitchen knife. The gruesome nature of Beaucage's murder led it to take on a legendary reputation within biker circles, being known inaccurately as the "Fifty Whacks with an Ax". This series of events saw a significant increase in the rivalry between the two clubs which would later spread into open conflict in 1995.
During the 1990s, Hells Angels from Quebec would frequently visit the Loners. In June 1993, the Hells Angels led by their national president Walter Stadnick hosted a party in Wasaga Beach that was attended by all of the Ontario biker gangs except the Outlaws and Satan's Choice. Lenti and the Loners were guests of honor at the party. Stadnick tried to persuade Lenti to have the Loners "patch over" to the Hells Angels, an offer Lenti and Raso refused. However, a working relationship was established between the two groups for a time with the Loners agreeing to buy their narcotics from the Angels. The Hells Angels offered Lenti and Raso further chances to "patch over" several times in 1993 and 1994, but they declined, with Lenti instead offering Stadnick a chance to join the Loners.
Stadnick was unhappy about the way that the prominent Ontario biker gangs such as Satan's Choice, the Loners, and the Para-Dice Riders all refused his offers to join the Hells Angels. In the fall of 1993, it was decided that several members of the Rockers and other puppet gangs would move to Ontario to set up a new puppet gang. The Demons Keepers had four chapters and we're supposed to flood the Ontario market with cheap drugs to try and cause instability. However the Demons Keepers would quickly collapse.
War with Satan's Choice
Frank Lenti would later be expelled from the Loners for the second time in 1994, which was said to either be due to allegations of him stealing from the club. or the fact that his temper was apparently getting out of control. Upon being expelled from the Loners, Lenti would go on to found a new outlaw motorcycle club, the Diablos. Lenti used his home as the Diablos clubhouse, which was located only a half block away from the Loners' clubhouse on Kipling Avenue in Woodbridge, this was considered a direct provocation. The Loners clubhouse was so close, it forced intimidated members of the Diablos to take an alternate route to their clubhouse. Satan's Choice agreed to sell drugs to the Diablos and offered support club status with the possibility of joining Satan's Choice, which angered the Loners. The Loners came into conflict with the Diablos in the summer of 1995, who called upon Satan's Choice for aid.The Satan's Choice made a firm alliance with the Diablos, led by Loners exile, Frank Lenti. Langton wrote: "So desperate were the big biker gangs for every square inch of southern Ontario – especially prime real estate like Woodbridge – the Diablos were immediately courted". The narcotics trade in the Greater Toronto Area had grown very intense, and even the small territory controlled by the Diablos made them worth aligning with. On July 18, 1995, a member of the Diablos threw a homemade bomb at a tow truck owned by a Loner. Two days later, two Diablos were injured when they were both shot by a member of the Loners Woodbridge chapter. The Satan's Choice would enter the conflict on behalf of their ally. Brawls between the Loners and Satan's Choice became common in the summer of 1995, causing injuries to multiple people. Satan's Choice ambushed three Loners in Woodbridge, injuring them. Several businesses belonging to members of both clubs, such a tattoo parlor, a motorcycle repair shop and a bar were bombed.
On August 1, 1995, the Toronto chapter clubhouse of Satan's Choice on Kintyre Avenue – which was backing the Diablos – was stuck by a rocket fired from a military rocket launcher by Loners members. The Canadian journalist, Yves Lavigne wrote the explosion caused by the rocket "tore a large in the door and blew windows out of three neighboring houses, but did not injure the bikers inside the building". Later the same night at 3: 35 am, Satan's Choice tossed a bomb through the window of Pluto's Place tattoo parlor owned by a Loner on Lake Shore Boulevard, setting off a fire that caused $50,000 in damages. The next day three Molotov cocktails were tossed at Bazooka Jacks bar in Markham, Ontario, a Satan's Choice associated bar that was popular with members. On August 16, 1995, Satan's Choice struck back for the attack on their clubhouse by firing a rocket – again from a military rocket launcher – at the Loners Woodbridge chapter clubhouse. A Loner told the media it was not Satan's Choice that fired the rocket as he claimed: "Looks like the cops have stolen our rocket launcher". Canadian authorities would raid the Loners clubhouse due to this. They seized several illegal weapons but what unable to make any arrests.
Despite the lucid headlines in the newspapers, Satan's Choice as a whole was not committed to an all-out struggle against the Loners. Officer Lorne Campbell made an agreement with the combatants that all of York Region north of Highway 7 was a "no war zone". On 25 August 1995, Lenti, the president of the Diablos, was nearly killed by a bomb planted by Loners in his car. The incident left him in hospital for months. The explosion had removed his left butt cheek from his body, This earned him the title "half-assed biker", which he detested. The Diablos collapsed without Lenti, and after attacks on two more members, their territory and membership were forcibly absorbed by the Loners. With the Diablos gone and Lenti in the hospital by the end of 1995, the conflict ended with the Loners and Satan's Choice agreeing to peaceful terms. The war in Toronto had seen the Hells Angels change tune temporarily to support the Loners against Satan's Choice. Stadnick was upset with the Satan's Choice over the war, but did not wish to keep Satan's Choice as his enemies. Afterwards he set out to rebuild his damaged relationships with the Choice leaders. While relations between the Loners and Hells Angels would degrade in the years to come.
Following the war, the Satan's Choice was subject to a large police crackdown in Ontario, this would cause tensions between them and the Loners to decrease. The Hells Angels saw it as a competition of who was fit to help them expand into Ontario. These police raids put an end to that, as the Satan's Choice was in bad condition. This caused the Hells Angels to increase their partnership with the Loners, who they were already supplying drugs. Detective Len Isnor stated, "The Satan's Choice were never the big guys, they were nickel and dime. The Loners were always Stadnick's favorites." The Hells Angels continued to court Loners, there was even talks of the Loners becoming a support club for the Angels in Canada and Italy, this unfortunately for the Angels would never occur.