Former 'drug kingpin' now pushes hot dogs to eager customers

Markham, Illinois: Two decades after customers clamoured to buy cocaine from a teenager named John Cappas, they are lined up again to buy what he has to sell: Hot dogs.

The one-time "drug kingpin", as the newspapers called him in the late 1980s, this summer became an owner of a hot dog stand called Johnny's WeeNee Wagon.

It is a few Chicago suburbs and a world away from where he ran the drug empire that made him $25,000 (Dh91,750) a week - enough to buy a house, fast cars and a necklace that spelled "Spoiled Brat" in diamonds.

In a bright red building that looks like a barn with a man-sized statue of a hot dog wearing an American flag out front, he sells hot dogs, gyros, burgers, and now for the first time since the place opened in 1955, french fries.

"I'm doing the right thing now," said the 43-year-old Cappas, who was released in 2004 after serving 15 years in prison.

That does not mean Cappas is shying away from his past.

He obviously enjoys telling stories about what life was like before he was arrested. Like the time he made headlines when, knowing federal agents were looking to arrest him, he and a local television reporter took a spin on Lake Michigan on a friend's speedboat before he turned himself in.

So far, Cappas sees no signs that his past has cost him any customers. In fact, on one recent day, customers - many of whom said they knew all about Cappas' drug dealing past - were in a line that stretched out the door. Some said his past was partly why they were there.

"It's great to see somebody whose life is turned around and is trying to do something good," said Mary Beth Johnson, a 47-year-old Orland Park resident.