30th anniversary of this epic Montreal moment

  
   This was the route taken by PQ House Leader Claude Charron on Jan. 30, 1982 when he stole a $120 tweed sportsjacket from Eaton's department store, along with another man who was described as his bodyguard but was more likely his gay lover, as he fled once Charron was in the clutches of the cops.
   Charron had paid for one jacket but was attempting to wear the other one out without paying for it. "I wasn't thinking. I was testing something that seemed idiotically easy," he later said and also blamed his behaviour on depression.
  At the time I used to go to Quebec City and had a friend there who told me that Charron was known  to be a bit out-of-control and was known to make brazen advances on her male friends.
   So I wasn't totally surprised when Charron showed a shocking failure of judgment but the backlash against the department store, already vilified for a mythical reputation for not serving people in French, become a source of bewildering amusement, as Charron supporters burned their Eaton's credit cards and angrily called radio call in shows denouncing the shop. It was said that only one in five or six shoplifters was prosecuted in those years.
   Charron, once caught by two security guards after slipping on the slope at University and Belmont, begged to be allowed to pay double the price of the goods in exchange for forgiveness but he was nailed with a $300 fine and his career in politics was toast, not toasty.
   The 35-year-old Charron, who was first elected to the Assembly as a 23-year-old in 1970, was later arrested for drunk driving after hitting a fire hydrant in Quebec City in September of that same year. He tendered his resignation a few days later.
   Georgine Coutu who handled PR for Eaton's during the affair, went on to become city councillor for the downtown Peter McGill district in the 90s. She died of cancer during her reign.
   One much-arrested arsonist attempted to burn down Eaton's as a political protest against Charron's bust. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the deeds.
   Charron's autobiography became a hot seller in Jan. 1983. He went on to become a TV personality.