Sept. 5, 1981: 200 police put squeeze on bikers’ big bash in Coronation
Police put the heat on a weekend outlaw biker rally in Coronation in what was described as the largest police action in Canada.
The rally and Labour Day Run, hosted by Edmonton’s Rebels motorcycle club, attracted 350 bikers from Calgary’s Grim Reapers and King’s Crew, Vancouver’s Satan’s Angels, Hell’s Angels from Quebec and Massachusetts, Gitans (Gypsies) from Sherbrooke, Que. and one Vagabond from Toronto to the town 270 km southeast of Edmonton.
Most of the 200 police officers and equipment came from central-Alberta RCMP detachments and included a mobile police command centre, a telecommunications truck, an RCMP helicopter, two fixed-wing observation aircraft, two chartered buses, the heavily armed Red Deer tactical team, a Vancouver RCMP special biker squad, numerous plainclothes officers, several police dogs, police photographers and a vehicle to store evidence.
At the height of the operation, the police, including a contingent of 40 Edmonton officers, sealed off the town’s main street to inspect 150 bikes and photograph the bikers. RCMP said the operation was simply an oversized Checkstop.
By the end of the event, police had laid 113 Highway Traffic Act charges, mostly for minor violations such as noisy mufflers, 14 liquor violations, eight charges of possession of marijuana and cocaine, one charge of possession of stolen property and one charge of possession of a restricted weapon.
Ten people were arrested on outstanding warrants.
The bikers called it an “expensive overreaction” and “pure harassment” by the police.
They had held the weekend rally and Labour Day Run at a campground 30 kilometres north of town every year since the early 1970s.
Coronation’s then mayor, Muriel Heidecker, said the bikers had not caused problems in the past and the town did not ask for the police crackdown.
The bikers were actually good for business, some merchants said.
But RCMP public relations officer Brant Murdoch said there had been reports of rapes, assaults and other offences from previous biker parties.
The next year only about 50 members of the Rebels motorcycle club from chapters in Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Vancouver and Quebec showed up for the rally, spending most of the weekend drinking coffee and beer in the hotel tavern, while police gathered in the courthouse to discuss strategy.
Fifteen RCMP cars cruised around a town of 1,800 people normally policed by five officers.
The bikers stopped coming to Coronation around 1983 after town officials told them they couldn’t accommodate the bikers’ request for a private fenced area where they could meet and socialize away from prying eyes.