Pub owner disputes MPP's version of sons' police incident

The owner of a pub in downtown Perth is taking issue with MPP Randy Hillier's version of an incident in which one of Hillier's sons was Tasered in a dispute over face mask rules.

Hillier, the independent MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston and an outspoken opponent of COVID-19 public health rules, posted a letter Saturday on Twitter that he sent to OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique. The letter says Hillier's son, Clayton, was Tasered by an OPP officer after police threw his brother to the ground during the dispute on Friday night.

In a statement, OPP said members of the Lanark detachment responded shortly before 10:30 p.m. to a bar on Foster Street. The owner called police to remove “several individuals as a result of a dispute over a failure to wear face masks,” the statement said.

Demetrios Kotsovolos, owner of the Golden Arrow Pub and Eatery in Perth, said the Hillier brothers were not the patrons who had been evicted, but they joined a confrontation with police outside his bar.

One of the Hilliers “got in the cops' faces. I couldn't believe the stuff he was saying to the cops.”

Kotsovolos said the Hilliers had been loud inside the bar, but he believed they had been wearing masks.

Hillier's letter says his sons tried to defuse the situation outside the bar and that, while attempting to de-escalate the situation, his eldest son, Dillon, “was thrown to the sidewalk by the police.”

His youngest son, Clayton, stepped in “to act as a shield to prevent further physical violence against Dillon by the police. Clayton was then Tasered in the back,” the letter continued.

On Monday, a Facebook post by The Golden Arrow Pub read: “Bullying small buisnes (sic) owners because of customers disordely conduct is not ok! Accusing officers of brute force who were attacked is not ok!”

The statement criticized the MPP for defending his sons' behaviour rather than being “embarrassed” by it.