Montreal fined $20Gs for bar mitzvah 'from hell'
Last Updated: Friday, May 11, 2007 | 8:19 PM ET
CBC News
The City of Montreal has been ordered to pay $20,000 in damages after a judge ruled a drunk janitor had ruined a bar mitzvah, which the city tried to cover up by falsely accusing the bar mitzvah boy of not being Jewish.
"This was a party from hell," said Peter Neumann, referring to his grandson's coming-of-age celebration.
The janitor, who was in charge of the cultural centre in the West Island community of Pierrefonds, was drunk when the 350 guests arrived for the Neumann bar mitzvah, court heard.
He also sexually harassed the female guests, stole the ice from the machine and tried to sell it back to the Neumanns.
But his misdeeds didn't end there: The janitor also refused to put toilet paper in the bathrooms.
When the elevator broke trapping several paraplegic guests, the janitor did nothing.
Neumann said that when one of the musicians had a heart attack, the janitor refused to call 911.
"The drunk janitor reappears," Neumman said. "I say 'What's the address?' He said, 'I don't know.'"
The Neumanns said they asked the city for an apology. Instead, they got a 40-page defence statement that, among other things, accused them of lying about being Jewish.
"To question our faith and our reason for having a bar mitzvah, that was a very, very immoral thing that they did to us," said the boy's grandmother, Marlene Neumann.
The city has since taken full responsibility for the incident and has fired the janitor in question.
