Wine and punishment

There is also a view that Hardie overshadowed other winemakers

From the moneyed and bucolic duchy of Prince Edward County has come yet another cautionary tale for men of high station sexually abusing women.

Norman Hardie, a Canadian winemaker, is alleged in a series of reports by the Globe and Mail to have engaged over years in a pattern of workplace misconduct and harassment that included unwanted sexual contact, groping, lewd comments and requests for sex.

As Hardie offered a calibrated apology of sorts last week to the more than 20 women reportedly making these allegations — “To all those who felt marginalized, demeaned or objectified while working for or alongside me, I am truly very sorry” — restaurants and provincial alcohol distributors were cutting ties and declining to restock his products.

What he now sees and all should note is that the justice of the marketplace — even when one is called “King of the County,” and however much one’s product may have pleased the judicious palates of the famous — can come faster and at greater cost in the era of #MeToo than any sentence apt to be rendered by a court.

By some accounts, the hospitality industry has been as risky a business for women to work as Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood, with titans of good times and the associated trappings of fine food and wine taking routine advantage of female staff.

Now, the Hardie case does for the hip and mannered denizens of The County what Grace Metalious did in the 1950s for American suburbs much like her fictional Peyton Place, pulling back the tasteful curtains to reveal a less savoury reality.

Apparently, young people who landed summer jobs at Hardie’s winery could stay in rooms filled with bunk beds — the “Normatorium” — or set up tents on the property.

There was reported to be a “secret beach” nearby, free-flowing booze, the 52-year-old host at the head of the table pouring generously — and a generally understood standing order that “what happens in The County stays in The County.”

This latest development in the ongoing campaign to call predatory males with power to account is both instructive and somewhat unsettling — the latter because of how scorched the earth can be beyond the manicured estates of the alleged perp.

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario, for one, has said it will no longer stock Hardie products — a near to fatal blow to any producer.

There’s likely a discussion to be had on whether agencies such as the LCBO should leave that ultimate decision to consumers. But the motivation in taking a stand in defence of vulnerable workers is laudable.

Even so, the action — and other boycotts of Hardie products and his winery tours — looks likely to bring loss and hardship to large numbers of innocent people.

Many have worked at the winery. The local economy has benefited from its success. That success attracted new investment.

Locals, naturally, are hoping for silver linings, and that an expected short-term downturn is trumped by longer-term improvements for those working in the industry.

Existing safety and harassment policies are being revisited and improved reporting procedures considered.

There is also a view that Hardie, by dint of a large personality, overshadowed others in the wine business and that its fruits might now be shared more widely.

The lesson for all of us is one that should be by now well known — that the complicity of those in the know in keeping an abusers’ secrets is a losing proposition.

Those with power should consider that conduct of this kind not only brings down one’s own castle, but visits unintended harm and ruin on innocent bystanders.