Restaurant Cavalli slapped with 100-day suspension
MONTREAL - A Peel St. hotspot has been slapped with a 100-day suspension of two liquor licences and a restaurant permit after a long list of infractions that included frequent fights, excessive noise, overcrowding and valets deliberately parking clients’ cars in a bus stop and using orange cones to take over meter-parking spaces on the street.
The Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux issued its ruling against Restaurant Cavalli after a hearing last month.
Cavalli had been the object of numerous complaints from police, who alleged it was frequented by criminals and was the scene of a large number of violent incidents.
They included a fight in 2006 in which police had to physically push aside the manager to enter the building, another in 2011 when they found a man on the premises “gravely injured” by a gunshot that shattered the front window, a 2011 brawl in which two people were beaten and stabbed, and the 2012 arrest of a man found with a loaded gun on the bench beneath him.
Police said the restaurant had 449 people inside on one occasion in 2011, while licensed for 143, and was regularly visited by members of street and biker gangs.
Alleged mob boss Vito Rizzuto, who died in December, was seen there in May 2013, the Régie ruling said.
The restaurant has been owned by a numbered company, 4072430 Canada Inc., since 2003.
It accepted the 100-day suspension and, as part of a joint agreement, pledged to refuse admission to a list of “undesirables,” respect municipal noise bylaws and respect traffic laws.
Aside from the 15 “undesirables” listed by name, entry to the restaurant should be denied to anyone identified as part of a street gang or criminal motorcycle gang, the Régie said.
Cavalli slapped with suspension