Ajax councillor reinstated, cleared of wrongdoing

Renrick Ashby, who faced six lawsuits and an integrity commissioner's complaint after his nightclub was shut down, has been reinstated on Ajax council.

Thestar.com
April 14, 2015
By Marco Chown Oved

Ajax councillor Renrick Ashby has been reinstated to his council seat after a judge overturned his removal for filing an incomplete campaign financial statement.

Ashby will return to council with a clean slate after the town’s integrity commissioner cleared him of two separate Code of Conduct complaints last week.

But the councillor, who also works as a full-time senior planner with the City of Toronto, will not be taking home his full salaries because a judge has ordered his wages garnished in one of six civil lawsuits brought by investors against him and his nightclub, which was shut down in 2012 after police found it was operating without a license.

On Tuesday, Ashby’s lawyer Murray Maltz successfully argued that his campaign finance reports were not accepted due to a technicality.

“The substance of the law was complied with,” Maltz told the Star. “He acted in good faith and his mistake was inadvertent ... He didn’t do anything improper and the judge agreed.”

Once Ashby refiles his completed financial reports this week, he will automatically be reinstated to his seat, said Ajax town clerk, Martin de Rond.

“He’ll be back as a full-fledged member of council,” de Rond said.

Maltz, who doesn’t represent Ashby on any of the civil suits, nor on the complaint to the integrity commissioner, declined to comment on those matters.

The Code of Conduct complaints, made by Paul Mitchell, who ran against Ashby for Ajax’s Ward 2 seat in last year’s election, largely pertained to Ashby’s nightclub, Nexx Night Club & Lounge Inc., which defaulted on $200,000 in loans after police discovered it was operating without a license.

In May 2013, Ashby pleaded guilty to one breach of Ajax’s Entertainment Establishment Bylaw and three contraventions of the provincial Liquor Licence Act, was fined a total of $8,500 and given one year to pay.

Ashby did not pay the fines on time, but had settled the debts by the end of last year, according to the Commissioner’s report. Meanwhile, four separate people have sued Ashby for failing to repay personal loans amounting to almost $100,000. While three of the suits remain ongoing, in April 2014, a Superior Court judge ordered $15,355.86 to be garnished from Ashby’s City of Toronto wages.

“Few would argue that the selling of liquor to the public without a licence, the operation of an Entertainment Establishment without a permit, the failure to pay fines within the time limits imposed by a court of law, and the failure to repay loans borrowed from constituents, can be considered as an “appropriate” treatment of members of the public,” wrote Integrity Commissioner Harold Elston in his report tabled at Ajax council last week.

But because of the time frame for complaints to be lodge had expired, Elston was obliged to dismiss the complaints pertaining to the illegal nightclub. He ruled that complaints pertaining to the personal loans and resulting lawsuits are not breaches of the code.

“Accordingly, I have no choice but to dismiss the complaints,” he wrote. “In the result, it is my recommendation ... (that) no penalty be imposed on Councillor Ashby.”

Three lawsuits against Ashby personally and two more against Nexx Nighclub remain ongoing.