The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal has awarded $16,000 in damages to two black men, after a Montreal-area bar refused to serve them in 2003, saying they were bad for business.
In a decision issued this week, the provincial tribunal ordered bar Le Surf, it's co-owner, a waitress and a busboy to pay $5,000 in moral and $3,000 in punitive damages -- as well as all legal fees and interest -- to the two men.
Seydou Boubacar Diallo and Mamadou El Bachir Gologo, both of Malian origin, were turned away from the bar several times in September 2003.
The tribunal also dismissed the bar owners' request to clear the employees of any responsibility for the bar's racial policy, as they were following orders.
Bar co-owner Christian Lemyre had told the two men that he had implemented a policy that barred black people from entering after local bars began having trouble with black gang members.
"It inconceivable and unacceptable that at this time monetary or economic reasons can justify committing a discriminatory act,'' tribunal Judge Pierre E. Audet wrote in a decision released earlier this month.
Lemyre intends to appeal the amount of the damages, he told Journal de Montreal.
"That's a lot of money for what I did. I didn't kill anyone," he told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, Diallo told the Journal he wasn't completely satisfied with the tribunal's decision because the amount was not enough.
"But the judgment clearly says that racism is punishable and that nobody can hide behind the authority of his boss.''
Last summer, the Quebec Human Rights Commission had recommended total damages of $25,000 for the two men but the case was then referred to the provincial human rights tribunal, which lowered the amount.
With a report from CTV Montreal
