Fets Whisky Kitchen wins infamous legal battle after four years

Dec 8 2022, 6:49 pm

Fets Whisky Kitchen may still be closing at the end of the year, but like any good story, a few threads have been tied up just in the nick of time.

Many will recall the infamous incident involving the bar back in January of 2018, when the largest whisky raid in Canada since the prohibition occurred at Fets Whisky Kitchen.

At the time, the bar was subject to a seven-week investigation – spurred on by a complaint in Victoria against another establishment – that lead to the seizure of 242 bottles of whiskey.

These bottles were among some of the rarest varieties on earth, Fets tells Dished in an email, and the three agents who entered the bar did so without proper authority or warrants.

Despite the fact that these bottles were registered with the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and the government had received tax for the products, they were still taken due to a grey area legally – they had been purchased via private liquor stores, not government stores, which is not allowed.

Seizures took place in three other BC bars at the same time, one in Nanaimo and two in Victoria.

The two owners of Fets faced the possibility of a year of jail time each, as well as a $100,000 fine each, in addition to another $100,000 fine to the business and the “possibility of the cancellation of our liquor license.”

As Eric Fergie, one-half of the owners of Fets, tells Dished, “My partner and I took offence to how the government officials handled themselves by running roughshod over the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Liquor Control and Licensing Act itself. We decided to hold them accountable and challenge them.”

“We went up against a governmental regime that has considered themselves untouchable since the Government Liquor Act was first formed in 1921, a year after Prohibition and ninety-seven years prior to The Raid,” he adds.

 

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After hearing rumours that an investigation had been launched prior to the raid itself, Fets requested documents from the government – a request that was refused. The business filed a Freedom for Information Request, which was continually delayed.

After numerous consultations with their own lawyer, requests for “all documentation pertaining to the investigation and our case,” and years of back-and-forth with the government, Fets was set to finally head back to court on October 27 of this year.

In an unexpected turn of events though, and still without complete knowledge of what the government was trying to hide about its documentation of the raid, Fets was returned what was taken from it, nearly four years and $100,00 in legal fees later.

“In early October of this year, the government decided it was time to do the right thing and return the unlawfully seized whisky. Seized liquor is typically disposed of shortly after seizure – our whisky was never disposed of. They knew they were in the wrong and we had to find the key to get it released,” Fergie explains.

Fets Whisky Kitchen was ordered to pay a fine of $3,000 for the return of its 242 bottles of whisky.

 

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Many unanswered questions remain about the investigation and the raid as a whole, which was named Operation Malt Barley by an unknown person or persons. “We may never know who ‘green lit’ the coordinated raid on the four Scotch Malt Whisky Society venues.”

Fergie adds, “What we do know, and what matters the most, is that after five years, two enforcement hearings, a judicial review and a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees later, a couple of tenacious restaurant owners won their case against an out-of-control provincial liquor regime and 242 bottles of some of the world’s rarest whiskies are being returned to them.”

As for the final days of Fets Whisky Kitchen?

Fergie says that despite the legal win, “we have not made any plans to be open in January.”

The bar will have some whisky to sell, even after it’s closed its doors, but Fergie adds mysteriously that, “we’ll be letting the world know what’s happening in due time.”

We’ll update this story as more is revealed.

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