Canadian restaurant won’t fight medical marijuana user

TheStar.com | GTA | Eatery won’t fight pot smoker
A Burlington businessman brought to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal after he told a medical marijuana user not to light up in front of his family restaurant has given up fighting the complaint because he couldn’t afford the legal fees.

“The financial burden, the burden on me and on my family was too much,” Ted Kindos, owner of Gator Ted’s Tap and Grill, said yesterday after reaching a settlement.

Kindos said his lawyer told him it could cost up to $60,000 to continue fighting the complaint; it was scheduled for eight days of hearings at the Human Rights Tribunal beginning yesterday. Kindos said he has already spent $20,000.

Steve Gibson, a long-time customer, complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2005 after Kindos told him to leave the premises for smoking marijuana in the doorway of the restaurant at Burlington Heights Plaza.

“The principle I was fighting for was to be able to have quality of life and to be able to go out without being stuck at home because I need my medical marijuana,” said Gibson, adding he was pleased with the settlement.

Although the commission’s lawyers do not represent the complainants, their positions are often similar, said commission spokesperson Jeff Poirier.

“For the commission, this case is about being treated the same as the other smokers. This is a smoker with a disability who uses medicinal marijuana that’s legally prescribed to him so he’s seeking access to the designated smoking area,” said Poirier.

Kindos said he originally refused to allow Gibson to smoke marijuana in the smoking room of the restaurant. Gibson then began smoking in front of the restaurant and patrons complained of the smell, said Kindos.

These cases are gaining ground in Canada and the twelve US medical marijuana states.  If marijuana is to be treated the same as other medicines, then we have to address the question of how patients are to use their medicine outside of their home.

In many states, smoking anything in or near a public building is absolutely forbidden.  But in this case, the restaurant made an allowance for tobacco smokers to be able to smoke in a designated area.  So if patrons have a right to smoke tobacco for no medical purpose – indeed, to the detriment of their own health, and the health of others through secondhand smoke – then it is hard to understand banning a medical cannabis smoker in the same area.

The only consideration would be a moral judgment that smoking cannabis is wrong, which seemed to be the situation here.  Kindos alleged that the patrons of his restaurant didn’t want their children exposed to the smell of cannabis.  There is no health risk associated with children smelling marijuana, but there is the risk that witnessing a harmless man smoking marijuana without any negative consequences will open the minds of those children and make them harder to fool with drug war reefer madness.