London, Ont. restaurant fined $55K after worker injured by customer in 2023

A restaurant-bar in London, Ont., is facing a big fine after pleading guilty in a case of workplace violence that saw an employee injured and hospitalized by a customer.

The incident occurred at El Furniture Warehouse at 645 Richmond St. on London’s Richmond Row on Nov. 5, 2023. The business is now facing a $55,000 fine after being convicted in Provincial Offences Court.

According to Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, the employee was acting as a host of the business on the day of the incident and was asked by a manager at 1 a.m. to tell a customer to leave the bar.

While speaking with the customer, they “mimicked striking the worker,” but a second later, the customer’s companion hit the worker. The employee and second patron fell to the floor, and when the worker began to stand up, they were struck again by the same person.

The worker called 911 and reported the incident to the floor manager via a social media messaging application. They were then taken to hospital and treated for an injury.

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Through an investigation by the ministry, it was found that the El Furniture Warehouse chain of restaurants and bars had “little to no procedure or training for handling violent situations.”

“There were no procedures for summoning immediate assistance, no radios to assist with communication between workers, and at the time of the incident, no security guards,” the Ministry of Labour wrote in a court bulletin on Monday about the fine being laid.

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Furthermore, ministry inspectors said they learned the company had not completed a risk assessment in the workplace despite “incidents of violence” having occurred in the previous year.

The company pleaded guilty in Provincial Offences Court on Nov. 10. In addition to the $55,000 fine, it also had a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge levied under the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a provincial government fund set up to assist victims of crime.

The fine was laid after Justice of the Peace Abdul Ali Chahbar found the company “failed to develop, maintain and implement a workplace violence policy” under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Global News has reached out to Richmond Street Warehouse Restaurant Ltd., which operates as El Furniture Warehouse, for comment and to inquire if a workplace violence policy has been implemented since the 2023 incident.