A sign in a Vancouver army surplus store that says they offer a “free punch in the face” to people not wearing a face mask is bringing some much-needed levity to shoppers as our nerves become collectively more frayed during the pandemic.
Last week a person working at a grocery store was threatened with a meat cleaver after staff asked a man to wear a mask while shopping. Over the weekend a man was attacked with a knife in his elevator in the West End after another incident involving an alleged assailant not wearing a mask and being asked to put one on.
…
V.I.A. reached out to lawyer Kyla Lee, who tells us she “loves” this sign, and that it’s perfectly legal for them to display it.
Lee tells us that it’s technically a threat, “but given that it’s conditional on compliance with an existing law,” and that it includes an element of humour and “wouldn’t be taken seriously,” that it’s protected by freedom of expression.
Under the law, a threat is any type of communication that involves one person threatening another person with physical harm. Threats don’t have to be communicated verbally, and they can be made through signs.
Lee says the difference, legally, between this and an illegal sign, “would really boil down to intent as well as what a reasonable person viewing the threat would perceive.”
Read the full story here.