The tragedy of Mad Dog's burger chain

I just spoke to Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon at his home in Nebraska. I was led to call him after seeing the photo of Mad Dog Burger (below) taken by Kate McDonnell among her excellent shots on Flickr.
   The first Mad Dog Burger franchise was launched on St. Catherine at St. Elizabeth on May 21, 1988 and owned by Martin Gilbert, a former automobile electrician, who was eventually a little miffed that it took over a entire year for a second one to open up.
   Franchises cost $50,000 although with other costs they ended up totaling up to $250,000. A second was opened on Masson in the Plateau on 1 November 1988, but Mad Dog couldn't attend the ribbon cutting because he had recently lost a leg in a car accident. A third ended up in Place D'Armes but closed in late October 1989.
  Mad Dog and his brother Paul "The Butcher" Vachon - had both recently retired and these restaurants were the fulfillment of a longtime dream they shared, or so they said at the time.
  But it screwed up when lawyer Jean-Marc Béliveau, who had once headed the provincial Union Nationale party, started monkeying with the investments. He was eventually disbarred in late 1989 for his involvement with the chain. He was 55 at the time.
   Béliveau allegedly borrowed over $400,000 from the till. Monique Peries of Hawkesbury personally lent him $200,000. An elderly woman named Aristas Comis gave her entire life savings of $25,000 to the cause, she was attracted to the investment by lawyer Claude Rousseau, a friend of Beliveau's, who she heard speak on CKVL radio. Plomberie les Lutins sued for $26,000 in unpaid bills.
   Beliveau reported that he had temporarily borrowed $150,000 of the franchisors' cash to fund a $15 million deal of which he would supposedly get one mil. A priest in Cameroon named Dogmo was going to get a $25 million donation from a religious Catholic in China and brokering that deal would supposedly land Beliveau one million.
   This is what Mad Dog told me about the ill-fated affair. "It was thought up by the lawyer (Beliveau). He was dishonest and he got me into this. He got a lot of people to buy franchises. It was a very bad experience. He was crooked and many people got screwed and lost a lot of money. The name was good. It was a good idea. But he wanted to take all the money."
    Mad Dog otherwise sounds in good spirits. He has two homes, one in Windsor Ontario and one in Nebraska which has, he says "about the same weather as Montreal."
   Why not retire to warmer climes? Indeed The Dawg spends three weeks a year in Honolulu but didn't go this year and won't go next.
   "My daughter Cheryl was born there in December 1961. That year I spent eight months in Hawaii."
   Mad Dog remembers Portland, Oregon also: "That's where I had my first fight. Before the fight even started I was disqualified and suspended. I got so mad in the dressing room that they gave me the name Mad Dog and it stuck."