Free Expression
Clothing retailer American Apparel, facing questions over the placement of a magazine deemed pornographic in a West Vancouver store, is citing a “free-expression” argument to defend its policies on selling BUTT, a gay-lifestyle quarterly. The controversy began this week when a West Vancouver woman, taking her 13-year-old daughter shopping at the store, came across a display that featured an accessible copy of BUTT that contained, as she put it, “a full, double-page spread of two men engaged fully in a sex act.”
She complained to the store manager and the operators of the mall. In its first comment on the controversy that has led West Vancouver's bylaw office to fine the store in the city's Park Royal mall, spokesman Ryan Holiday said the company supports its gay customers “and anyone who enjoys the magazine.”
“The accidental placement of the magazine was fixed, but it should not be used as an excuse to limit diversity or free expression as those are fundamental values of American Apparel,” Mr. Holiday said Friday in an e-mailed statement from the company's Los Angeles head office.
He declined to answer other questions posed in a subsequent e-mail. He had initially suggested The Globe and Mail put its questions to a specific representative of Egale Canada, which promotes equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. However, that official did not respond to calls.
Liz Holitzki, the acting manager of permits, inspections and bylaws for West Vancouver, said Friday the store had been fined $100 for violating a municipal bylaw on the display of such material. A bylaws officer went to the store after the news media reported the situation. Regulations in West Vancouver require such publications to be displayed only under certain conditions, including that they have opaque covers, are on shelves of a certain height and are not open to public view.
The case is a first, Ms. Holitzki said. “In the five years this bylaw enforcement department has been together, this is our first case of having to do this, of having to go into a clothing store and deal with any kind of adult publication and even having to go into any retail store where they sell magazines at all and having to deal with an adult publication that was not displayed properly.”
Ms. Holitzki said she was sending one of her staff members back to the store Friday – a third visit in three days – to make sure the magazines had been removed from easily accessible display. The store, she said, has been warned that it could have its business licence suspended or revoked if it offends again.
“We understood from speaking to their manager that they were just following direction from their head office in offering [the magazine] for sale, so we just wanted to confirm head office had not countermanded our instructions,” she said.
However, she said the bylaw department was prepared to take its concerns to the head office.
She said she had received calls from other bylaw officers in Surrey, Delta and Richmond – other Lower Mainland communities intrigued by West Vancouver's use of the bylaw in the American Apparel matter.
“We speak on a regular basis to see what is happening and they wanted to know what I was prepared to do,” she said.
In Toronto, enforcement of such bylaws is reactive. Stores are investigated only after a complaint to the city. In the case of American Apparel – which could be violating Toronto's rules on where such magazines are displayed and how they should be obscured – no such complaint has been received.
“I'm not aware of any complaints in regards to the American Apparel issue,” said Richard Mucha, a manager of licensing services with the City of Toronto. “Certainly, if we were in receipt of that, we would certainly investigate.”
A Vancouver, Canada man who pleaded guilty to gay-bashing has been sentenced to 17 months in jail for what a British Columbia Supreme Court judge deemed a hate crime.
Michael Kandola lashed out at Jordan Smith, who was holding hands with another man as they walked on a downtown Vancouver street in September 2008.
Smith, then 27, suffered jaw fractures. The victim and witnesses said Kandola, then 20, uttered a string of homophobic slurs during the attack.
Smith had to have surgery and his jaw was wired shut for six weeks after the attack.
Calling Kandola's actions vicious, unprovoked and cowardly, B.C. Supreme Court Judge Joel Groves said hatred of Smith's sexual orientation was a motivating factor in the attack, and for that reason, he was meting out a harsher penalty.
Kandola was originally charged with assault, but the Crown soon changed the charge to aggravated assault causing bodily harm.
Graves said Kandola will get credit for the five months he already spent in jail, meaning he will spend 12 more months behind bars if he serves the full sentence.
CBCNews.ca Reporting
0%
Grindr is an application that if you told a homosexual in the 1950s would one day exist, would probably fall over and die of a heart attack. Unlock your phone, click an icon, 
More than 2,000 gay men, lesbians and their allies took back Vancouver's West End on Sunday, shutting down Davie St and marching to demand an end to gaybashings and the violence that continues to target our community accord to 
Vancouver has seen five gaybashing trials in the last eight years. Only once has the Crown sought a hate crime designation, Herbert pointed out, asking the crowd to send Crown a message that gaybashings must be treated as hate crimes and stiffer sentences sought.
