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City wages costly war in rave case
Action to prosecute four over 'noisy party' could exceed $30,000

Jake Rupert
The Ottawa Citizen


Thursday, January 10, 2002

Ottawa taxpayers will be on the hook for an estimated $30,000 -- and possibly more -- to prosecute the organizers of a noisy rave party in a bizarre case currently winding its way through court.

On one side are Christoforo and Romana Ferrante, a couple in their 40s who own a building at 125 Willowlea Rd. in Stittsville, and Serge Theriault and Sacha Leclair, two men in their early 20s who organized a rave party in the parking lot of the building under tents.

The party took place the night of Nov. 4 and 5, 2000, and the event was loud. Two residents near the party, which saw between 1,000 and 1,500 young people dancing to electronic music, complained to police they couldn't sleep that night.

Two police officers were sent, and eventually a bylaw officer was called. That night, Mr. Theriault and Mr. Leclair were handed Township of West Carleton noise bylaw tickets with a maximum penalty of $2,000 each. Later, the Ferrantes also got the noise tickets. Usually, these tickets result in fines of much less than the maximum.

Ten days after the party, all four were charged with zoning and building code violations for using the building for a purpose for which it wasn't designated. This changed the situation dramatically because the maximum penalty for building code violations is a maximum $25,000 fine for each person charged. The zoning violation carries a maximum $1,000 fine.

Lawyers Carey MacLellan and Richard Morris were retained by the couple and the young men respectively. At the time, the Ottawa law firm of Soloway Wright handled prosecutions for West Carleton and this agreement was transferred to the City of Ottawa for this case. The firm has largely a civil litigation practice.

Mr. Theriault and Mr. Leclair, who say they didn't make any money on the event, have offered to plead guilty to the noise infractions in return for $500 fines. But Soloway Wright is not entertaining plea bargain offers.

Alan Cohen, the Soloway Wright lawyer handling the case with another lawyer, said he wouldn't comment on how much the prosecution of the four has cost, or would cost. He said it was a matter of attorney-client privilege. However, he did say there has never been any thought of plea bargaining for a settlement because, for a number of reasons, "it is an appropriate case for prosecution."

He said three regulations were clearly broken, and the organizers created an unsafe, hazardous environment for the people attending the party.

A trial date was originally set for Sept. 5, 2001, and the defence lawyers were confident. In proceedings like this, the prosecution has a duty to disclose its case to the defence. The defence lawyers were confident because nowhere in the materials provided to them by the prosecution was there anything suggesting the organizers of the party or any party goers were in the building at 125 Willowlea Rd., which is an auto garage, that night.

A statement made by bylaw officer Scott Saborin, who was called to the rave and issued the noise violation tickets and the building code tickets later, did not say anything about people going into the building.

On the morning of Sept. 5, before the hearing, defence lawyers met with Alan Riddell, who was handling the case for Soloway Wright that day, to see if some kind of deal could be worked out. During this conversation, Mr. MacLellan and Mr. Morris voiced the opinion that Mr. Riddell had a very weak case on the building code violations, as there was no evidence anybody went in the building.

At this point, Mr. Riddell told them this was no longer the case. He told the lawyers Mr. Saborin had recalled the night before -- 10 months after the party -- that he saw people going in and out of the building, and, therefore, the building-code violations could be made out in court.

This dramatically changed the case, and the defence lawyers went into court and asked the justice for an adjournment to prepare for this new development and to seek costs for their lost day in court.

This resulted in a flurry of legal jostling, with Mr. Riddell arguing the matter wasn't that important, and with the defence arguing that to call the only evidence that could lead to convictions and a total of $100,000 fines for their clients not "crucial" inaccurate.

In the end, Justice R. Switzer agreed with the defence and ordered an adjournment until later this month. The costs hearing was to be dealt with today.

Yet even more legal jostling has ensued, with Soloway Wright filing an appeal of Judge Switzer's decision to grant the defence an adjournment.

Justice James Fontana heard the appeal earlier this week and reserved his decision until an undetermined point in the future.

With the appeal of the adjournment not decided, the prosecution is expected to ask for an adjournment of the costs hearing today. Defence lawyers say this lost day in court will be added to their costs application, too, and if Judge Fontana decides the adjournment was proper, both defence lawyers intend to ask for costs for arguing the appeal. In fact, if they win the trial itself, they may ask for their costs on the whole case.

"I think it is a tremendous expense to put taxpayers through considering the offence, which was essentially a noisy party," Mr. Morris said yesterday.

© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen

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Legal fight required to set 'limits,' city says

Zev Singer
The Ottawa Citizen


Thursday, January 10, 2002

The expense of prosecuting people who threw a noisy party is appropriate, according to senior city staff, because the party was a rave and the city wants to reduce the number of raves in Ottawa.

Jerry Bellomo, the city's director of legal services, says he and Susan Jones, the city's bylaw chief, decided to go ahead with the prosecution because they want to set a precedent in dealing with raves.

The idea was to set "a limit to the extent these activities should go on," Mr. Bellomo said. Use of the bylaws, he said, can enable the city to "place some sanctions on these activities" and cut down on the number of them.

The city does not have a bylaw that outlaws raves altogether, although in April of last year, a bylaw was passed to regulate such events. Under that bylaw, organizers of raves have to buy permits, have their buildings inspected, hire security guards and deny entry to anyone under the age of 16.

© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen

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If anyone in Ottawa reads this, do you know anything about this case and that party? I'd like to know more details.

SLiiZ

I can help u out since I was there. This is what I've been told, is that they had Carleton or Ottawa U booked, I forget which one, but they backed out on them so they had to find somewhere and I guess the parking lot of the warehouse was suitable. The only thing the warehouse had been used for was the coat check, all the rooms were in heated tents. The party got shut down around 5-6 because of noise complaints. I had no idea it was still in the court though, I read the article in the paper myself. At the time there were no rave by-laws just zonning laws which are obviously being used to go after the two promoters. They've always been the ones to bring big names to Ottawa and I'ed hate to seem them fold because of this.

PeacE

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If you know the promoters or can reach them, you can offer them my email address (chris@hullabaloo-raves.com) if they want to discuss their case with someone who's been through it all already.

I was in the courts fighting bylaw code infractions for almost 2 years and ended up with a $10 000 fine (and $10 000 in legal bills).

SLiiZ

Done done and done........I dunno if he'll contact you though.....seems like everywhere cities enjoy targeting raves.

PeacE