by arthur Weinreb,
December 22, 2004
Last week, the Toronto Police Services Board settled a $1.5 million lawsuit that was brought after the police raided the Pussy Palace, a lesbian bathouse in September 2000.
The civil suit that was brought alleged that the five male police officers who conducted the raid lingered unnecessarily amongst over 300 women, many of them scantily clad, while looking for liquor offences.
In 2002, a Provincial Court Judge found that the women’s right to privacy had been contravened and said that the conduct of the officers amounted to a strip search and constituted violations under the Charter of Rights.
The settlement of the class action suit consisted of a payment of $350,000 which, according to the Globe and Mail will go towards legal fees and the remainder to charities. The settlement also provides that each and every member of the Toronto Police Service from the chief on down will receive more sensitivity training regarding the gays, lesbians and the transgendered
Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino was upset about requirement for more sensitivity training, saying that his force is already sensitive to the needs of that community. Looks like the outgoing chief who graced the cover of Fab, a gay magazine published in the city, by posing as the cop from the 1970s group, the Village People, did it all for naught. Considering that Toronto has a leftist city council that includes Mayor David Miller and Police Board Chair, Pam McConnell, the settlement could not have come as a surprise to Toronto’s top cop. after all this is a city that subscribes to the group hug theory of fighting crime. after a few weeks of some high profile crime including the fatal stabbings of two young men who were merely coming to the aid of others, David Miller, the mayor of some of the people, said absolutely nothing.
It has always been argued, mainly but not exclusively by those on the left, that there is one law for the rich and one law for the poor. In a sense, that’s true. Someone who sells cocaine in the washroom of a brokerage house is less likely to face any consequences than a black teen who sells crack in the parking lot of a Metro housing project. But that is more a difference in where the police are deployed than it is an intentional desire to treat stockbrokers and unemployed teens differently. The police can hardly be expected to not respond to a violent crime in a low income neighbourhood because all of their officers are in Bay Street office towers checking the washrooms.
The raid at the Pussy Palace was instigated at the request of two undercover female police officers who noticed violations. Whether there were any breaches of the law has been long forgotten in the wake of the civil action. What this settlement has done has created two different laws; one for gays and one for straights.
While Toronto police will continue to raid massage parlours and heterosexual strip bars looking for illegal sexual activities and other offences, they would have to be crazy to ever enter a gay bar or other gay premises in the absence of information that a serious crime has been committed. While heterosexual men will end up being charged for engaging in consensual (albeit paid for) sex, gays and lesbians will have free reign to do whatever they want to do within the confines of gay establishments.
Ontario’s openly gay Minister of Health, George Smitherman, is pretty pleased with himself after announcing the toughest anti-smoking legislation in North america. No smoking in any public places that includes legion halls and enclosed outdoor patios. But in light of what has transpired, who will ever enter a gay establishment to enforce the no smoking law? Only someone with a fetish for unlimited sensitivity training would ever even contemplate it.
The settlement of the civil suit effectively means that there is now one law for gays and one for heterosexuals. So much for the notion of equality.