Toronto wants $187,000 from rebel owner

Invoice details expense of BBQ owner’s defiance of lockdown order

It’s time for Adamson Barbecue to pay the piper, again.

Restaurant owner Adam Skelly is already facing provincial and criminal charges after opening his restaurant for indoor dining for three days straight last November, in defiance of public health orders to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Over the weekend, his Instagram account shared a screenshot of an invoice he received from the City of Toronto totalling a whopping $187,000.

The city wants to recoup costs related to enforcing provincial public health regulations and trying to close the Etobicoke restaurant — and keep it closed under health ministry orders, Andrea Gonsalves, a city spokesperson, said in an email.

The costs include staffing police — the bulk of the bill at over $165,000 — as well as public health and licensing staff, boarding up the premises and the cost of a locksmith.

The location was later allowed to reopen for takeout and delivery, and a GoFundMe for Skelly’s legal defence raised more than $330,000.

Lawyer Tanya Walker said she sees merit to the cash charges as a deterrent to businesses who may also try to defy provincial lockdown measures. “It’s pointless to have a law if you don’t enforce it,” she said.

When you factor in the severity of the pandemic and the strain it has placed on public health, “a fine of this nature is justified for what he did,” Walker told the Star.

But lawyer Caryma Sa’d, who shared a screenshot of Adamson Barbecue’s invoice on Twitter over the weekend, has some concerns about the ripple effect a ticket like this could pose.

“On the one hand, presumably the municipality doesn’t think that taxpayers should be left holding the bag for one individual's actions,” Sa’d said. “But, on the flip side, there may be a collective interest in not penalizing protesters and in such a heavy-handed way.”

Sa’d pointed out that it’s worth questioning whether invoicing like this could be a tool to suppress protests. But, she said, it depends on where the receipt is coming from — whether it’s arbitrary or upheld by legislation, which in this case it is, she said.

The 1990 Ontario Health Protection and Promotion Act outlines that the board of health can recover expenses from an individual in carrying out directions from the medical officer of health to lower the risk of disease spread.

While the invoice Skelly was dealt comes from a pre-existing statute, Sa’d says $165,000 is a lot of money and it’s worth questioning how that is calculated.

Dana Larsen, a Vancouver 420 event organizer, said it dealt with similar policing bills and the administering of them seems to be at the whim of officials.

“I don’t think that having a protest means you should have to give the police $100,000 to exercise your right to gather in public and make a political point,” he said.

Larsen said he doesn’t agree with Skelly’s actions, and that if he broke the law, “he should be charged with a crime,” but that a bill from police may be a step too far.

Angelyn Francis is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering equity and inequality. Her reporting is