Ontario's Open Season On Small Business Owners

Mark Steyn has a good piece about the human rights commissions' impact on small business owners. He sounds mad as hell, and I don't blame him. He mentions Gator Ted's, an Ontario bar that's been put through hoops for the past few years for not letting a man smoke medicinal marijuana on their property.

I heard that the case was settled last year. The Gator Ted's story, however, is still not over. Far from it. If you want to hear the definition of a rock and hard place, here it is:

Hamilton Spectator: Gibson complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2005 he's been discriminated against because he is disabled after Kindos asked him not to smoke marijuana outside the restaurant's front door. Patrons complained about the smell, Kindos said.

Kindos was ready to settle with Gibson, pay him $2,000 for mental anguish, arrange sensitivity training for staff and post a sign saying the establishment accommodated medicinal smokers. But he changed his mind after the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario warned that use of a controlled substance in areas the restaurant controls, including parking, put his liquor licence in jeopardy.

So Kindos decided to fight rather than settle, despite the fact the upcoming hearing could cost as much as $60,000. As Kindos sees it, he either fights or Gator Ted's Tap & Grill loses its licence and closes.

When's the hearing? June 8, 2009. When did this all begin? 2005.

So there you have it. If Gator Ted's owner appeases one government institution (the OHRC), he gets nailed by another one (the gaming commission). He is literally damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

This stuff has always made me angry, but now it's starting to scare me. And that sucks. I suppose it's the feeling these government institutions want me to have and I have to fight it.

We're being told that the economy's going to hell in a handbasket, and that small business owners are oh-so-important, yet two government institutions seem quite content to have a small business owner crushed between them. Who's next? This can't be the Canada I grew up in. But it is.

I don't know who to call on to stop this madness. Maybe it has to start at the grassroots. No-namers that can take an issue and run with it, making it an issue that can put them on the front page.

Here's MPP Joyce Savoline from Burlington, showing more sense and guts than any of the bigshot politicians. This appeared in the smalltime Burlington Post yesterday:

There is something morally reprehensible and very disturbing about a government that allows its citizens to pay the price for its inconsistent policies.

I encourage you to write to Minister Ted McMeekin — who has suggested that he will not let Ted Kindos flounder — and tell him what you think.

He can be reached at tmcmeekin.mpp@ liberal.ola.org.

Take her up on the offer.