The city is allowing Etobicoke restaurant Adamson Barbecue to reopen after its owner publicly flouted provincial COVID-19 lockdown rules.
Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Eileen de Villa said on December 14 that she has lifted an order forcing the business to close because it no longer poses a communicable disease risk.
However, the restaurant must obtain a business licence before reopening.
“The conditions that necessitated the order in the first place are no longer present at this point in time,” de Villa told reporters during a city hall press briefing. “There is no need for the order right now. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other rules that need to be followed, one of them being obtaining a licence.”
Police arrested owner Adam Skelly, 33, as well as another person, on November 26 and hit him with 13 criminal and non-criminal charges. The charges included one count of obstructing police and violating indoor dining rules under under the Reopening Ontario Act.
He was released on bail under several conditions a day later.
The case caused a media sensation over several day, with crowds, anti-mask protestors and media descending on the restaurant at 7 Queen Elizabeth Blvd. A legal defence fund for the restaurant on crowdfunding site GoFundMe raised over $333,000.
Indoor and outdoor dining has been prohibited in Toronto since the city entered the lockdown zone of Ontario’s COVID-19 response framework on November 20.
De Villa ordered the restaurant closed on November 24 under Section 22 of the provincial Health Protection and Promotion Act.
In a letter sent to Skelly this week, de Villa wrote “the order was necessary in light of the risk to health posed by the considerably unsafe operation of the premises in contravention of required COVID-19 measures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the city said in a news release.
“The lifting of the requirements of the Section 22 order would permit the Adamson Etobicoke location to open for takeout, delivery, or drive through only as allowed for under the Lockdown Regulation, subject to compliance with the City of Toronto’s business licensing bylaw and passing a DineSafe inspection,” the city said in a statement.
“Should that location defy the restraining order and the Lockdown Regulation and open for indoor and/or outdoor dining, the owner, the business, and/or its employees and agents could face contempt of court findings,” the statement continues.
The reopening is contingent on Adamson Barbecue seeking a business licence.
The city says the restaurant has been convicted three times of operating without a licence since 2017.
The maximum penalty for operating without a license is $25,000 for an individual and $50,000 for a corporation, the city said, adding the owner has been warned “a court may order that the premises be closed for up to two years where an owner is convicted of knowingly operating without a business licence.”
Adamson Barbecue and its owner remain under a provincial restraining order that restrains the business “from contravening the Lockdown Regulation under the Reopening Ontario Act (ROA).
“Should that location defy the restraining order and the Lockdown Regulation and open for indoor and/or outdoor dining, the owner, the business, and/or its employees and agents could face contempt of court findings,” the city added.
