Ted Kindos faces two choices: Continue to be called a bigot or break the law.Either way, he risks going bankrupt.
Kindos owns Gator Ted's Tap & Grill in Burlington. Four years ago, he asked a marijuana smoker to step away from his front door. The medically licensed toker complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission of discrimination against a disabled person.
He won.
Kindos was about to pay the fine and post obligatory signs saying, "We accommodate medicinal marijuana smokers," when a different government agency told him he could lose his liquor licence. Serving anybody possessing a controlled substance - prescribed or not - is against the law.
"Heads I win, tails you lose," Kindos said yesterday of the government's position.
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has scheduled 10 days to hear the case in June and July.
"People didn't like the way I smell," the smoker, Steve Gibson, acknowledged of one complaint against him from fellow patrons. "But I don't like a lot of smells either," he said. "I can't bare to stand near some chicks, they've got so much perfume on, let alone some ethnics that I don't like the smell of that much."
Gator Ted's is a roadhouse-style bar cum family restaurant, which when the dispute began offered an indoor smoking section.
Gibson suffered a neck injury in a 1989 workplace accident, collects a disability pension and is one of nearly 3,000 people in Canada medically authorized to use marijuana to control pain. His prescription covers 3.5 grams a day, or seven to eight joints.
When Kindos asked him not to light up inside, Gibson stood smack outside the front door where families pass in and out. Regular smokers stand there, too, he says.
"I don't care if you're eating a banana outside my front door - if you're blocking my entrance I'm asking you to leave," Kindos says.
After spending $40,000 in legal fees fighting the rights complaint - the government covered Gibson's costs - Kindos announced last May he would settle.
But on seeing the offer 10 days later, he changed his mind. He was ordered to pay Gibson $2,000 for pain and suffering, train the bar staff in the human rights code, educate the public about the code, and post signs in the restaurant and on his website saying he accommodates authorized marijuana users.
Discovering he could lose his licence proved the last straw. "A liquor licence holder may not permit a person to have, use, distribute or sell controlled substances in his or her establishment," the act states emphatically, meaning to serve Gibson would be illegal if he is carrying marijuana.
Kindos must continue to fight the complaint or lose his business, he says. Legal bills could also bankrupt him, he adds, but a lawyer has agreed to take the next stage without charge.
Health Canada issues guidelines to authorized users. "(He or she) is advised not to consume controlled substances in a public place and not to expose others to any effects related to the inhalation of secondary smoke," a spokesperson said yesterday.
Joyce Savoline, Conservative member of the Ontario legislature for Burlington, introduced a private member's bill last year to have all smokers stand no closer than three metres to a building entrance. "I specifically said `medicinal marijuana users,' because people who have authorization from their doctors think they have a right to smoke it anywhere," Savoline said.
The bill passed unanimously but the government later blocked it, citing lack of scientific data, she said.
An Ontario Human Rights Commission spokesperson said the tribunal must balance the right of medicinal marijuana users to control pain against the right of others not to be affected by second-hand smoke.