Bail hearing for man charged with attempted arson delayed to July

A man who was arrested while Montreal police were conducting surveillance on bars and restaurants in a northern section of the city as part of their effort to put an end to a series of arson fires will spend at least two more months behind bars before he has a bail hearing.

Frédérick Gagnon had a bail hearing scheduled for Friday at the Montreal courthouse, but it was carried over to mid-july.

The 35-year-old was arrested last week as police were investigating a series of six fires that were set in bars and restaurants in northeastern Montreal within a week, beginning on April 20. The businesses were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in each case the blaze caused only minor damage.

Gagnon is charged with attempting to set a fire and with being in possession of incendiary materials, including a Molotov cocktail, on the night of April 30.

According to police, he was arrested after patrol officers assigned to keep a close eye on bars spotted a man just before midnight near Café Chisler, located in a strip mall on Provencher Blvd. in St-léonard. The man ran away, and Gagnon was arrested a short while later after a police dog tracked him down.

At roughly the same time, police learned someone had smashed a window at Bella Vista, a restaurant on Gouin Blvd. in Rivière-des-prairies, and set off a small fire inside. The fire was quickly extinguished by the Montreal fire department. Café Chisler and Bella Vista are 12 kilometres from each other. No one has been charged in connection with the fire.

At least three of the businesses that were torched in April have been tied to organized crime.

In 2014, during Project Magot — an investigation into how the Hells Angels, the Montreal Mafia and the city’s street gangs were working together to traffic in cocaine — police conducting surveillance noticed three key figures in the probe held a meeting at one of the establishments, a restaurant on St-zotique St. E.

One of the three men at the meeting, Gaetan Sévigny, who had close ties to the Hells Angels, was fatally shot in Terrebonne on Oct. 17.

In 2016, Bar Cherry on Crémazie Blvd. E. saw its liquor licence suspended after the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux was informed Montreal police had arrested several drug dealers who had operated inside the establishment for years.