Two Alberta diners are fighting in court this week to open their businesses

By Sheila Gunn Reid
|
April 23, 2021

Fight The Fines

Reporting on and fighting the pandemic fines.

The Alberta diner rebels are in court this week, to answer to summons issued to them when they defied the Alberta government’s second lockdown on indoor dining in January.

Chris Scott of the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mirror, Alberta and Carlos Siguenza, owner of the Noble Fox just up the road in Bashaw, each had first appearances in Stettler Provincial Court for breaching public health orders.

The two small town entrepreneurs re-opened their dining rooms to customers after the Alberta government ordered all restaurants and pubs to move to take out service only in December 2020, in response to rising daily coronavirus case counts.

Their act of economic survival was embraced by their communities and inspired dozens of other restaurants to do the same. Doing so created an uncontrollable uprising which caused the government to back down and lift the ban on dining in.

However, before the dining room prohibition was officially lifted by Premier Jason Kenney, Chris and Carlos were repeatedly surveilled by Alberta Health Services inspectors, harassed by local RCMP and ultimately charged for violating the ever-changing public health orders.

Chris and Carlos are being aided in their battle against the entire health bureaucracy and law enforcement by Chad Williamson from Williamson Law in Calgary. Williamson is the top-notch litigation specialist who kept Chris out of jail back in February in his first stare down with the government. He had AHS drop one proceeding against Chris and then had the court order the government to pay some of Chris’s legal costs.

Williamson is working for Chris and Carlos at no cost to them, thanks to donations to www.FightTheFines.com, Rebel News’ largest civil liberties campaign ever. He brings us an update in the case of the diner rebels and what he has in store for the government in the future.

Donations to www.FightTheFines.com are now eligible for a charitable tax receipt through The Democracy Fund, a registered Canadian charity.

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