Since 1989, senior officers have been able to drink in the lounge at headquarters
CBC News has learned that a Toronto Police Service superintendent went into a lounge with a licensed, fully-stocked bar about three hours before he crashed his service-issued SUV into another car in Pickering, Ont., and was charged with driving while impaired.
Supt. Riyaz Hussein, who was in charge of the service’s disciplinary tribunal, pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol level of more than 80 mg per 100 ml in October. Today, he will face charges under the Police Service Act at the Toronto police disciplinary tribunal.
No one knows how long Hussein stayed in the Executive Officers Lounge or if he drank there. But his presence there leading up to the crash on Highway 401 has police stakeholders questioning the appropriateness of a bar within a public institution like police headquarters and potential liability issues.
Alok Mukherjee, who was the head of the Toronto Police Service Board from 2005 to 2015, said, “That event has made me very worried.”
“That brings up questions about who is in charge and how the room is run, but it also brings up a bigger question. Even if it was the norm 50 or 25 years ago to have a fully stocked bar on the premises, that’s not the case now. Whether or not that is okay today.”
CBC News used the Freedom of Information Act to get a security pass scan log for the lounge, which is only open to senior officers. Hussein’s pass was scanned into the lounge at 4:31 p.m. on January 13, 2022, according to the record. You don’t need a pass to leave the lounge.
By 7:39 p.m. that night, Hussein had already hit a delivery truck in a suburb of Toronto and been checked out by paramedics. An OPP officer then asked Hussein to take a breath test on the side of the road, which Hussein failed, according to the notice of hearing in Hussein’s disciplinary proceeding.
The accident happened on the eastbound lanes of Highway 401, just west of Liverpool Road in Pickering, about 38 kilometers from the police headquarters. Police had said before that Hussein came back to work in February 2022 and was put in charge of administrative tasks.
CBC News tried to get a comment from Hussein and his lawyer, but did not hear back.
John Sewell, who runs the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, said, “I can’t believe they have a bar in this government building.”
“This is a service to the public. I don’t know of any other government service that includes a bar, but the police do.”
Police say that the liquor license wasn’t used very often
CBC News asked Toronto police for an interview with police chief Myron Demkiw to talk about the licensed bar and Hussein’s presence in the lounge before his drunk driving accident. However, Toronto police said no.
Instead, a spokesperson for the service said in an email that the service can’t say anything about things that are before the disciplinary tribunal. But, he said, the lounge has had a liquor license for a long time, and the Ontario Liquor Licence Act says that alcoholic drinks must be served by someone who is Smart Serve certified.
Stephanie Sayer said, “The license is rarely used, and usually only for formal events like retirements or when hosting dignitaries.” “Most of the time, the space is used for meetings or as a quiet place to work.”
In a statement of its own, the Toronto Police Service Board said it had nothing to do with setting up the Executive Officers Lounge and has nothing to do with running it.
“The Board makes it clear that driving while impaired is illegal, against the law, and against a police officer’s duties and responsibilities,” said Ann Morgan, the interim chair.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario says that the Executive Officers Lounge at 40 College Street got its first liquor license in 1989. (AGCO).
The former board chair says that the bar is well-stocked
Mukherjee says that when he was chair of the TPSB board, he went to the room many times for things like retirements, dinners, and meetings with people from the community. But when he was there, the bar wasn’t very busy.
He said, “They have a committee that runs that room.” “One of them or a person designated by them, who is obviously a police officer, serves or manages the bar when it is being used.”
The Toronto Police Service Board says that the Executive Officer Lounge Committee is in charge of running the lounge on a day-to-day basis. Several police sources told CBC News that the alcohol in the bar is paid for by the Senior Officers’ Organization, which is the union for senior officers.
Mukherjee says that the lounge can fit up to 50 people and has a lot of windows, a table, lounge chairs, and a fully stocked bar on one side.
Mukherjee says that while he was board chair, he never heard of an accident or incident that was caused by someone being in the lounge afterward. However, he says that there were informal talks about whether or not the bar should stay open.
“I can see why big public buildings would need a licensed space for alcohol. I don’t think having a licensed space is the same as having a fully stocked bar “said Mukherjee.
“We need to talk about whether it’s a good idea in this day and age, when drunk driving is such a big problem.”
Sewell, who has written three books about police work in Canada, thinks that the service needs to get rid of the bar right away.
“There are a lot of bars in downtown Toronto if they want to drink,” he said. “But to have it at work so they can load up before they go home? Sorry, that’s not right.”
Through a Freedom of Information request to the AGCO, CBC News got a list of all liquor licenses in Ontario that fell into the same “social club” category as the Toronto police license.
The RCMP was the only other police service on the list whose headquarters in Ontario had a liquor license. Since at least 2016, both the RCMP’s main office in Ottawa and the “O” Division’s main office in London, Ont., have had liquor licenses.
Before this story was due, the RCMP didn’t answer questions about how its liquor licenses are used.
Risk that the police service will be liabl
Mukherjee says that there are liability issues to think about if a direct link is made between the bar and a serious event. This is in addition to how the bar looks.
“A very important question comes up if there had been serious injury or death or damage to someone’s car and a lawsuit was filed because of it,” he said.
“What is the responsibility of the management, the board, and the police chief? So I think there are good reasons to think very, very carefully about whether or not the bar should stay.”
Nainesh Kotak, a personal injury lawyer, told CBC News that the senior officers’ bar could be liable in the same way that any private bar or restaurant could be if a customer driving drunk causes an accident. This is called “commercial host liability.”
“The only difference I would see is that there would be an extra relationship between employer and employee,” Kotak said. “Where the employer has a duty of care to keep its employees, who may be senior officers who drink, from getting hurt too much.”
Kotak says that personal injury lawyers usually sue everyone who could be at fault for the harm.
“That would be the driver who did something wrong, who might have been drunk, and you’d probably sue the places where the person was drinking,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean that they’ll be held responsible, but the establishment should have a way to tell if someone is drunk and take reasonable steps to make sure they don’t drive.”
In October, Hussein pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol level of over 80. He was given a one-year driving ban and a $1,560 fine. Charges of driving carelessly and having open alcohol in a car were also dropped.
The crash is also linked to two charges of bad behavior against the superintendent.
Hussein will face these charges in front of the disciplinary board he used to run today.