Ex-Ontario man who defied lockdown by opening BBQ restaurant gets court hearing after five years

CALGARY — A former Ontario man who opened his barbecue restaurant back in 2020 despite lockdown rules and was arrested and fined because of it — is finally getting his day in court.Adam Skelly, whose barbecue joint, Adamson Barbecue, in the Etobicoke area of the GTA, is now permanently closed due to the financial strains Skelly experienced thanks to multiple charges brought against him. The charges occurred during the lockdown in early 2020, when provincial and municipal laws and bylaws shut down all small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Skelly choosing to defy these mandates by opening his business for indoor dining.It only took two days of Skelly opening his business for him to be arrested.The Toronto police changed his locks — but Skelly broke into his own restaurant, after which more than 250 police, including a horse mounted cavalry, came and dragged Skelly to jail..Ontario BBQ owner who defied lockdowns scrambles to meet court-mandated financial hurdle.Skelly was charged with obstructing a peace officer, mischief, and trespassing on his own property.They also went after Skelly's father's business licence, and charged Skelly $187,000 for the costly enforcement action police took to drag him to jail.In 2021, Skelly collaborated with the Concerned Constituents of Canada (CCC), a civil liberties organization, to launch a constitutional challenge against the lockdown measures issued by the Ontario government.This challenge would be a response to the closure Skelly received under the Reopening Ontario Act, 2020. With the CCC, Skelly raised $341,300 to cover his legal fees..On the day of his hearing, the judge, Ontario Superior Court Justice Jasmine Akbarali, claimed there was a "jurisdictional issue" with Skelly's paperwork — and later stated the hearing would not continue.“I regret to say I do not think I have the jurisdiction to proceed to deal with these issues on the merits today,” she said, according to Vice.“I do not think the proceeding has been constituted in such a way to give me that jurisdiction.”But now Skelly will continue his constitutional challenge, at a hearing in Toronto on February 25-27..Since the closure, Skelly moved to a new location — Alberta.As to why he did so, Jody Ledgerwood, who works with the CCC, explains this was because his rights were taken away in Ontario."He lost his businesses, and then the government took over, and the crazy thing is he actually owned the property," stated Ledgerwood."His father owned the property that his restaurant was on — and Toronto Public Health has never done this before, where they've actually seized someone else's property and said it was their own.""He lost his property. He lost his businesses. He had to claim bankruptcy because he wasn't allowed to open his businesses.".She says Skelly's fate was that of many small businesses at the time."And all you have to do is drive down Yonge Street in Toronto and you'll see business after business is empty, or storefront after storefront."Now it becomes clear why Skelly said goodbye to the GTA: "Adam lost not only his businesses, he lost his entrepreneurship dream, and with no income coming in and no ability to get a job.""Because he's self-employed, he could not file for EI claims, so he ended up having to sell his home to cover his bankruptcy debt.""And the little bit that was left, he couldn't afford to stay in Toronto.".Ledgerwood claims the Toronto police continually harassed Skelly at his Ontario residence, "Toronto Police were harassing him and showing up at all hours of the night and knocking on his doors and yelling at his windows."The best thing for Skelly to do was leave — now, Skelly works on a dairy farm in Alberta, but Ledgerwood says his family is still struggling.But now, there will be a new two-day court hearing after the five-year wait.Ledgerwood says the CCC team and Skelly are extremely prepared this time around.."The case we expect that we're going to win at this level of court," stated Ledgerwood."We have six PhD experts, an expert public health expert, an economics expert, a statistics expert, a medicine and pulmonary specialist expert, an epidemiologist expert, and we have an immunology expert, all testifying for us.""They've all written affidavits — they're all ready to testify.""Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, in section one, that the government must demonstrably justify, as per the Oakes test, evidence of a pandemic or of an emergency in order to suspend people's Charter-protected rights.".Under section one the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an individual's rights and freedoms are guaranteed — only restricted by "reasonable limits" prescribed by law.The "reasonable limits" are determined through the Oakes test, requiring the limit to be "demonstrably justified" — this is what Skelly and the CCC hope to prove was not."And none of that was given, we are the only case that is challenging the evidence and challenging the government's lies and procedures of calling out this lockdown," continued Ledgerwood."Other cases that are in the courts, continue to fail because the courts are using a reasonableness of a pandemic, that governments or employers used reasonable care given the fact that there was a pandemic." ."They're using what's called judicial notice — they're just saying yes, the government said there was a pandemic — so there was a pandemic — without ever requiring the evidence to prove that statement.""Our case is demanding the evidence."Ledgerwood says this case is for everyone — to maintain rights according to the Charter."This is going to have an enormous impact on every case that went before us that lost, and every case that is currently sitting in the court dockets to be heard once we remove the ability to use judicial notice as an excuse for the harms the government did, for the mandates the government rolled out."."The floodgates are going to open, and people are going to see that this can never happen again."Check out the CCC's website to learn more about Skelly's case and to donate towards his legal fees.

Ex-Ontario man who defied lockdown by opening BBQ restaurant gets court hearing after five years

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