What happens when two personal freedoms conflict?
[Ted] 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 bias 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.
Medicinal marijuana smokers certainly have a right to access their medicine, free of discrimination (you can even argue that anyone should have a right to do anything to their own bodies as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights – but there are laws preventing that). But shouldn’t people also have a right to protect the well-being of their business? Would the toker be any worse off if he had simply moved a few meters away from the entrance, away from the families that regularly passed through? Apparently a compromise wasn’t good enough.
After spending $40,000 to fight the rights complaint – the government covered [the smoker, Steve] Gibson’s costs – Kindos announced last May he would settle. But on seeing the offer, he changed his mind. He was ordered to pay Gibson $2,000 for pain and suffering, train staff in the human rights code, educate the public about the code, and post the signs.
Discovering he could lose his licence proved the last straw.
Kindos must continue to fight the complaint or lose his business, he says. Legal bills could also bankrupt him but a lawyer has agreed to take the next stage without charge.
All this because the Ontario Human Rights Commission got involved in a situation that could have easily been worked out between two individuals.