Toronto, May 2 (IANS) A bouncer in a Canadian club, accused of refusing entry to an Indo-Canadian group because of their skin colour, has countered that the accusers had threatened him and called him racist.
Langley Shark Club bouncer Andrew Schmah told a human rights tribunal in British Columbia that he was not biased against any “visible minority group” in the wake of the Dec 9, 2011, incident, The Province newspaper of Vancouver reported.
Indo-Canadian Manjinder Gill, his wife Manjit Gill and their friend Sergei Rai had filed separate complaints with the human rights tribunal that they and their group were discriminated against and refused admission to a graduation party by Schmah because of their skin colour.
However, Schmah told the tribunal that he had stopped only only one member of the group because he had no ID.
“Some of my best friends are Indo-Canadian,” Schmah was quoted as telling the tribunal.
He said the although he told the group that the particular individual would be allowed entry if he came with an ID according to the club’s rules, the group called him a racist and threatened to take his photograph and send it to news outlets and post it on Facebook for “racial profiling”.
The group had earlier told the tribunal that they had arrived 15 minutes late for the 9 p.m. party and were refused entry even as Caucasians were allowed.
The Indo-Canadians had also alleged that Schmah told them there was no ticket available for a Christmas party going on inside although Caucasians went in without showing any ticket.
According to the report, Schmah told the tribunal that Rai was taking a video of him and he told the latter that he couldn’t do that without his consent.
The bouncer also admitted that he grabbed Rai around his collar and threw him to the ground. For that, he was sentenced to probation and ordered to take an anger management class.
The tribunal adjourned the hearing of the case to a later date to allow the complainants to subpoena a police officer who had attended the assault that night and to whom the all members of the group had provided IDs.
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