Landlord guilty of harassment: Unable to prevent his tenant from smoking medical cannabis

A Montreal landlord had the rug pulled out from under him by a judge who sentenced him for harassing a tenant by trying to prohibit him from smoking his medical cannabis.

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“His body and the pain that afflicts him do not allow him to go out on the sidewalk to smoke his medical cannabis. A ban on smoking in their accommodation would cause harm to the tenant,” concludes Judge Vanessa O’Connell-Chrétien, of the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL).

In his recent decision, we learned that the tenant Camille Rizkallah suffers from serious back problems, which allowed him to obtain a prescription for medical pot. He has therefore smoked marijuana in his home located in downtown Montreal since 2014. Akelius Montreal Ltd, the company which bought his 13-story building in 2018, subsequently tried on numerous occasions to ban him from smoking. joints.

Rizkallah finally asked the Court to issue an order so that his owner lets him consume in peace.

“The tenant benefits from a right to be accommodated due to article 10 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms due to the fact that it is necessary for him, in order to compensate for his handicap, to smoke, a quantity established by a health professional,” ruled the judge, agreeing with him.

He will have to pay

The TAL then found Akelius Montréal Ltd, whose Montreal office manager is Julio Viana, guilty of harassment.

“The Court concludes that the alleged acts and actions carried out by the owner constitute harassment since, repeatedly, they were aimed at making the tenant stop smoking medical cannabis in his accommodation even though it is a measure he needs to compensate for his disability,” writes Vanessa O’Connell-Chrétien.

Akelius Montréal Ltd will have to pay $5,000 for “harassing” Camille Rizkallah by wrongly asking her to stop smoking or leave her home.

Julio Viana declined our interview request since this file is still being studied by his legal advisors. The Corporation of Real Estate Owners of Quebec (CORPIQ) also refused to comment on this TAL decision.

His worried neighbors

The Journal went this week to the residential tower where the tenant lives, but the latter was not there.

Two neighbors of Camille Rizkallah, who prefer to withhold their names for fear of reprisals, told our representative that they now fear that their building will “reek even more of pot.”

“We understand that he has a disability, but we don’t have to breathe his second-hand smoke and ruin our health. There are several students from McGill and Concordia University in the building, what are we going to do if everyone starts smoking in their homes thanks to the courts?” exclaims one of them.

A twenty-year-old is especially worried about the precedent that this TAL decision creates. “He could at least consume cannabis with a vaporizer rather than smoking it, we wouldn’t at least smell it,” he notes.

Our requests for an interview with Mr. Rizkallah went unanswered this week.

Why does the Charter allow him to smoke cannabis?

The TAL judge recognized Camille Rizkallah’s back problem as a “handicap” within the meaning of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Article 10 of this Charter therefore gives him “a right to be accommodated” in order to alleviate his pain, namely to smoke cannabis in his home.

Note that this article of the Charter is also used when a visually impaired person, for example, needs a Mira dog to compensate for their disability. She will therefore be able to live with a dog in her home, even if a landlord normally prohibits all animals in a lease.

Note that a landlord can, in the lease, prohibit the consumption of recreational cannabis.