Bar over-served Rees night of fatal collision: tribunal
Drunk driver later hit, killed young mother
The Point Lounge over-served Jeremy Rees on the night he left the Constance Bay bar and struck and killed a young mother of twins with his car, a tribunal has ruled.
Rees was sentenced to five years in prison for the St. Patrick’s Day 2012 crash that killed 26-year-old Erin Vance.
“The impact of the loss of a young mother in this community has been significant,” tribunal chair Geneviève Blais said in her decision.
A hearing was scheduled after Richard Brian Charlebois and Mary Elizabeth Charlebois appealed a 60-day suspension proposed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.
The proposed suspension was for over-serving Rees and “permitting drunkenness” on its premises, according to an AGCO notice.
Blais found the bar sold alcohol to a person who appeared intoxicated and that it permitted drunkenness at the bar. Its owners now await a second decision on how long the bar’s licence will be suspended. That decision will likely not be delivered for several weeks.
There was one bartender for a crowd of between 40 and 60 people, Blais said.
“It was impossible to monitor the alcohol consumption of a patron,” Blais said in her decision.
During a five-day hearing, commission lawyer Philip Morris said five witnesses testified that Rees showed signs of intoxication, slurring his speech, swaying, speaking loudly and drinking fast. He acted strangely and tried to steal a bottle of liquor, Mor- ris argued. Morris said it was clear that Rees was drunk when he hit Vance.
Ainslie Dunstone, a paralegal representing the bar, said her clients never disputed that Rees was intoxicated but that he wasn’t at the bar long enough to determine how drunk he was. Dunstone argued there was “overwhelming evidence” that Rees left the bar up to two hours before the crash. The alcohol Rees consumed after he left the bar led to this intoxication level, she argued.
The impact of a licence suspension would be “devastating” for her clients, she said in her closing submissions.
Mary Charlebois said Tuesday she still hoped the suspension will be less than 60 days. In any case, she said, the bar, in business for 23 years, will make it through and keep operating. “It will be tough, but we’ll definitely do it,” said Charlebois, who still feels that the bar did what it could that night.
“We definitely cut this guy off and we definitely kicked him out,” she said.