By TENILLE TELLMAN, THE CANADIAN PRESS Fri, June 20, 2008
MEDICINE HAT -- Citing problems with violence and vandalism, some businesses in this southern Alberta city are banning British soldiers.
One local pub recently placed a sign on the door warning that the soldiers are not welcome. Other businesspeople have reported they have had to close shop for sanitation after soldiers urinated on the carpet or vomited on a pool table.
There have also been reports of soldiers damaging facilities, stealing tips from waitresses and exposing themselves to other patrons.
But the bannings aren't sitting well with everyone in the city. The British, who have been training at Canadian Forces Base Suffield since 1971, inject about $100 million a year into the local economy - an amount second only to the energy industry.
As many as 1,500 Brits are at Suffield, though the majority are support staff and the problems are with the so-called battle troops - trainees that number around 200.
Last year, Prince Harry trained at Suffield and made headlines around the world after he was photographed cavorting with young women at a Calgary bar.
But Stuart Hardiker, who served 10 years with the Canadian army reserves and the British military, complained that all Brits are being tarred with the same brush.
"It just blows me away how Canada, which prides itself on being a country of equality, standard of living and freedom of speech, can allow this to go on in plain sight," he said.
Hardiker has lived in Medicine Hat for 12 years and said he's been refused service in restaurants because of his accent. He calls it discrimination.
"That's like saying a black had a fight in a bar, you can't let blacks back in," said Hardiker. "Where do we draw the line?"
Ross Beach, owner of Rossco's Pub, isn't apologizing for his decision to post a sign banning the Brits.
"I'm not barring them because they're battle groups, I'm barring them because of what they're doing in here," he said, explaining his decision was based on specific incidents of theft and vandalism.
He admitted it's a case of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch.
Whether Beach has a legal right to post such a sign seems uncertain.
"You can't paint all people of a certain colour or a certain race, you can't stereotype every single one of them and say 'Every single one of them is going to cause harm,' " said Marie Riddle, director of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.
However, there is a clause in the Human Rights Act that says if a business can demonstrate they have reasonable and justifiable causes, they can discriminate against a customer.
