A confrontation between a Kelowna, B.C., business owner and a group of outreach workers has resulted in a civil lawsuit.
The legal action was launched by Donavan and Shandell Moore, owners of Evil Genius Artworx, after a video, with what they claim are false accusations, went viral.
The tattoo shop owners are suing Lighthouse Recovery From Starvation Society and several others connected to the organization for defamation.
“We’re going to stand up against that and take these individuals to court,” Donavan Moore told Global News.
Donavan Moore said that on May 16, he went out the back door of his Rutland tattoo shop to investigate after an employee and client complained about a strong smoke odour.
“There was a couple of people sitting there with their hoods on, drug paraphernalia all over the stoop in front of them and I pretty aggressively swept my right foot and kicked their stuff off the sidewalk,” Moore told Global News.
According to Moore, a handful of outreach workers showed up moments later, which led to the confrontation and, what he calls, false accusations being made against him.
He said the outreach workers accused him of assaulting vulnerable people.
“Specifically that I had walked out the back door and kicked one individual in the head and that I had also kicked a woman,” Moore said when asked what he was accused of. “Those were the two main accusations.”
When asked whether there was any physical contact between him and the people outside, Moore responded, ‘no’.
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The heated exchange was captured on video and circulated on social media, along with accusations, he said, demonized him.
“Real world harm has been caused to this business, my reputation,” Moore said. “I got called all kinds of names. We’ve received threats to the building, phone threats that the RCMP are now investigating. We’ve received threats to our staff.
In the notice of civil claim, the shop owners allege the defendants published and republished defamatory statements on social media and encouraged others to share the post and boycott the business.
The court filing states the allegations published by the defendants were “false, exaggerated, reckless, malicious and/or made with reckless disregard for the truth”.
According to civil lawsuit filed in Kelowna Court this week, one of the defendants named Amanda Lee Durocher, publicly published statements on social media identifying Donavan and Evil Genius Artworx and alleged, among other things, that Donavan “violently kicked the man in the head hard,” “kicked the woman too,” “physically assaulted vulnerable people” and “committed violence immediately and without provocation.”
The plaintiffs also allege the social media posts were intentionally disseminated widely online and encouraged others to share them and boycott the business.
The civil claim states that the social media posts tagged tattoo conventions and industry pages.
“They even went so far as to email the convention circuit that I work on and try to circulate this ‘gotcha post’ in an attempt to cut off my business opportunities,” Donavan said.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The society did not respond to requests for comment from Global News.
Durocher sent an email to Global News, stating: “What I witnessed caused me concern because the interaction was aggressive and escalated very quickly.”
Shortly after the confrontation video was circulated on social media, Moore posted his own video online hoping to clear his name while also drawing attention to the growing challenges businesses face on a regular basis.
“Constant theft, vandalism, violence, assault and disorder,” Moore said in the roughly seven-minute post. “I’ve been bear-sprayed, hit with hammers.”
Moore said he fears it will take a long time to rebuild his reputation but feels he has to see this through, adding that the crime and social disorder have become impossible for many businesses to manage.
“We’re way past the breaking point. The breaking point was years ago,” he said. “I really wanted to make an example of this situation to bring it to the forefront so that other businesses don’t have to go through the same thing because people should be allowed to speak up against this nonsense.”
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