Boot-wearing man wins bias case B.C. Human Rights Tribunal

[styky]

Boot-wearing man wins bias case

B.C. Human Rights Tribunal awards nearly $2,000

By Jill Bennett, QMI Agency

Last Updated: May 23, 2012 5:33am
VANCOUVER - A man who went to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal after he was told he couldn’t wear hiking boots to the gym has been awarded nearly $2,000 for his time and injured dignity.

Keith Wollenberg filed the complaint in April 2011 against the Platinum Athletic Club in Surrey.

In his claim, Wollenberg, stated his physiotherapist recommended he wear hiking boots while doing lunges to better support his ankles, because of an earlier tendon injury.

He said when he tried to wear the boots — described as a Mountain Equipment Co-op lace-up half-boot with a rigid rubber sole — the gym stated there was a no-boot policy in the gym dress code. Wollenberg then complained to the tribunal he was discriminated against on the basis of a physical disability...................http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2012 ... 1-qmi.html

[styky]

Marni Soupcoff: B.C. Human Rights tribunal upholds important right to wear hiking boots while performing lunges

Marni Soupcoff May 24, 2012 – 10:31 AM ET
They have an obligation to accommodate my relatively minor disability with a relatively minor accommodation.

— Keith Wollenberg, patron of a B.C. gym who was awarded $1,900 by a provincial human rights tribunal because the gym’s management would not allow Wollenberg to wear hiking boots while performing lunges in the facility

You have to admit it’s all gotten pretty tiresome, this business of human rights tribunals forcing people to pay large fines for the crime of causing minor irritation to another human being. It’s hard to find a better adjective than “crazy” to describe a society in which a government body deems a private club’s failure to grant a dress-code exemption to a man with arthritic toes an instance of illegal discrimination that violates the man’s “dignity, feelings and self respect.” What on earth happened to simple common sense? Why has gym footwear become the province of a quasi-judicial body? Why is a guy who is still going to the gym in question (he simply performs his lunges elsewhere, in case you were wondering) even considered to have a legitimate grievance?.......................http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... ng-lunges/

[RedDog]

As a teen we could be suspended from school for wearing any street shoes in the gymnasium. Those rules are long gone and the gym floors look like it, no doubt at triple the maintenance costs to still look like crap. People must have their rights of course.