Legal Ease, June 16

A reader asked about the powers of security staff in bars and taverns.

Specifically, the readers asked are security staff entitled to beat up an intoxicated patron?

No.

First, no one is entitled to beat up someone else – that is an assault and a crime regardless of who commits the assault.

Peace officers are entitled to use reasonable force – which sometimes can even include deadly force – in the legitimate performance of their duties but once someone is subdued, further violence is never permissible.

There was a recent case out of the Baffin Correctional Centre where a now former guard was convicted of assaulting an inmate.

That case is under appeal and the final result unknown, but it does show that even a peace officer can be convicted of assault if they go beyond what is reasonable.

Security workers in bars do have the right to use reasonable force to expel intoxicated or aggressive patrons. To that extent they are like peace officers.

A two-step process must be followed. First, the patron must be asked to leave the premises. If the patron refuses to leave, the security worker can use reasonable force to expel the patron.

But reasonable force only is permitted in removing the patron. Beating the patron once removed or doing anything more than the minimum required to expel the patron is not allowed and is a criminal assault.

That said, the law is perfectly aware that an angry drunk is not easy to control.

The court will not measure the actions of a security worker as if the worker was a diamond cutter. Reasonable force is fuzzy and if an extra shove is made that wasn’t strictly necessary nothing much will follow.

But if a patron is out of the bar and the security worker lays a beating on the patron, that is clearly criminal.

What’s more, a bar cannot expel a patron if it would put the patron in danger – if you have a very drunk patron you cannot just put them out on the street if it’s -45 and they could freeze to death.

The bar has to make sure they get home or put them somewhere safe to sober up.

While this may seem to be a onerous duty on the bar, remember the bar has an obligation not to let someone get so drunk as to be obnoxious. The bar is not to serve clearly intoxicated people and if they do, they have a duty to make sure they are safe.

Now as most people know, the law is one thing and the reality may be something else.

If an alcoholic living a marginal existence gets beat up after he is thrown out of a bar, it may well be that no criminal charges will follow.

Police — quite rightly — will lay criminal charges only when the case is very clear – and the evidence of a drunk is often not very good. That said, with extensive video surveillance, things that were unclear in the past are sometimes clear today.

Regardless, it is worth knowing your rights. Even if you are drunk and obnoxious in a bar, that does not mean you can be assaulted at will.

You have to be treated properly and if you are beaten up you have a right to go to the police and ask them to investigate and lay charges.

James Morton is a lawyer practicing in Nunavut with offices in Iqaluit. The comments here are intended as general legal information and not as specific legal advice.