4 Vancouver hotels win court fight over striking workers' noise at picket line

Four hotels in downtown Vancouver have won court orders to stop striking workers from using air horns, sirens, blowhorns and other noisemakers to draw attentionat the picket line.

The Rosewood Hotel Georgia becamethe latest to win an injunction in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday. The Hyatt Regency, Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront and Westin Bayshoreeach wonrespective orders on Oct. 3.

The latter three hotelssued the workers' union, Unite Here Local 40, first over the"nuisance" the noise created. The businessesclaimed the noise was deafening, intolerable and in violation of city noise bylaws.

Hotel Georgia filed its own, similar claim soon after.

The workershave been holding what they call an "open-ended strike" outside the hotels since Sept. 19. Room attendants, chefs, front-desk staff and other employees walked off the jobafter more than a yearof negotiations over issues related to safety, workload and job security failed to yield results.

Dozens of staff have paced in front of hotels for weeks, bellowing into megaphones and pummelling plastic buckets with drumstricks hooked up to a sound system to draw the public's attention to their cause.

Hotel workers used pails for drums on Sept. 30, 2019:

Hospitality employees on strike outside Hyatt Regency Hotel

5 years ago

Duration 0:24

Hospitality workers on strike sit outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Vancouver and use plastic buckets for drums on Sept. 30, 2019.

In her ruling favouring Hotel Georgia on Friday, Supreme Court JusticeNityaIyer said she found a court order to block the noise was warranted for a number ofreasons.

Iyer said evidence from the hotel's private investigator showedthe sound has reached 85 decibels more than 80 per cent of the time a level higher than 70-decibel limit set by city bylaws and loud enough to be harmful to a person's hearing.

Iyer also found the noise largelylasts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., save a few lulls,and Vancouver police had already cautioned workers about usingsirens, saying it could create confusion and potential safety risks.

The Hyatt, Pinnacle and Westin hotels had also claimed striking employees hadbeen trespassing andhindering people,particularly guests, who have beentrying to manoeuvrearound the hotels.

In her Oct. 3ruling concerning those hotels, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Pitzpatrick granted an order banningstaff from blocking or hindering people and vehicles moving around the hotels.

The Hotel Georgia did not make a claim concerninginterrupted traffic outside its hotel.

All fourhotels had askedthe court for an order to stop employees from picketing on its premises, but in her ruling, Justice Iyernoted the union has a legal right to put "economic pressure ... on an employer during a lawful strike."

Noise bylaws enforced by the City of Vancouver state no one is allowed to make noise in a public place that "unreasonably" disturbs peace and quiet in the area.