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A court has dismissed a charge that the owner of a Toronto food establishment contravened anti-discrimination bylaws when she encountered a Jewish doctor and his son last year at her store, The Canadian Jewish News reported on Friday.

Kimberley Hawkins, the owner of Foodbenders who gained notoriety for posting anti-Zionist messages to social media, was charged for violating a provision of the Municipal Code that forbids a licensed business in Toronto from discriminating on the basis of “race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, or disability.”

In an oral decision on November 15, a provincial offenses court dismissed the charge. In effect, noted The CJN that this means Hawkins can keep her business license, even though Foodbenders is closed and Hawkins has said she’s declaring bankruptcy.

The case stemmed from an incident in July 2020 at the former Bloor Street West eatery and catering company.

After seeing Hawkins’ many anti-Zionist posts on Instagram, which included “#zionistsnotwelcome;” comparing Zionists to Nazis, and accusing Israel of committing “systematic genocide,” Gordon Arbess and his son Josh decided to go to the shop and talk to Hawkins.

On July 5, 2020, “we decided together to go down and have a discussion with her,” Arbess, a Toronto family doctor, told The CJN. “We weren’t going down to cause trouble. We just really wanted to have a discussion. My son’s very peaceful. I’m a pretty peaceful guy.”

When they arrived, they asked to speak to Hawkins. Told she wasn’t available, Arbess said he told an employee: “We’re Jewish. We support the state of Israel. Would we be able to purchase something here? Are we welcome here as customers?”

According to Arbess, Hawkins then charged out from behind the counter, uttered profanities, and told the two to get outside.

From there, “things got bad very quickly,” Arbess recalled.

When he and his son went outside, Arbess said he looked over his shoulder and saw Hawkins coming at him with a bucket. She then allegedly threw a bucket of water on him.

“I said, ‘what did you do that for?’ I was sopping wet.”

He said his son was “quite shaken,” and called police.

Arbess said the police told him that Hawkins had apologized for the incident and asked whether he wanted to press charges.

“I was in a rush to get to work,” Arbess said. “I said, ‘I don’t really want to press charges. I don’t want trouble.’”

An assault charge against Hawkins was not laid.

Looking back, “perhaps we were a bit naive to think that we would have a frank discussion,” Arbess noted.

The CJN was unable to reach Hawkins for comment.

Reasons for the court’s dismissal of the charge were not immediately available. Hawkins’ lawyer, Stephen Ellis, told The CJN it happened “because the Crown did not prove that Mr. Arbess suffered any discrimination on the day in question.”

B’nai Brith Canada, which urged a review of Hawkins’ business license, said it was “disappointed and very concerned” about the court’s decision to dismiss the charge against her.

B’nai Brith said it is analyzing the decision “so that we can understand next steps available to the community.”

Foodbenders had been dropped by food delivery services such as Uber and DoorDash and abandoned by many of its former clients following the disturbing social media posts.

Hawkins responded to the criticism of her posts and said that Jewish people and Zionists are more than welcome in her store.

"I’m not anti-Semitic," she said, according to blogTO.com. "That would go against all the other principles that I’ve been standing up for the past few weeks. I believe that Palestinians should be free and have the same equal human rights as everyone and that’s not a stance I will apologize for."

Hawkins said at the time she had received a flurry of hate messages recently, but welcomes conversations with people who want to have "a respectful conversation about their beliefs and any differing views."

"When I'm making a statement about Zionism, I am not referring to Jewish people... It's about the state government," she stated.

A spokesperson for the City of Toronto said the city’s legal services “is in the process of carefully reviewing the court’s decision.”

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)