Intoxicated at city hall in March while celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, Mayor Rob Ford threatened to “get” the former city hall security guard who documented his intoxication at city hall on St. Patrick’s Day two years ago, two current guards reported in an internal memo.
“You can’t do that to me, man…What, you didn’t think I would find out? I am going to get him, you mark my words!” one of the two guards quoted Ford as saying on the night of March 15.
The perceived threat sparked an investigation that involved the most senior municipal bureaucrat, city manager Joe Pennachetti. It spooked one of the current guards so much that he refused to report Ford’s comments in a formal incident report.
Instead, the guard sent an email to one of his superiors.
“The writer feels that using City of Toronto resources is putting himself and (the other guard) at risk of a reprisal type situation by Mayor Ford,” the guard wrote. The guard added: “Mayor Rob Ford’s comments have me most concerned for my safety as a city employee.”
Ford’s chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment. In the wake of yet more revelations of alleged crack cocaine use and racist, lewd, and anti-gay remarks, Ford has taken an indefinite leave of absence to address what he says is a problem with alcohol.
The new documents, obtained via freedom of information request, describe Ford’s alleged words and actions on the same night he was filmed swearing and stumbling outside city hall wearing green St. Patrick’s Day beads. The mayor later went with a group of strangers to Muzik nightclub, where he drank to excess; people with him believed he had used drugs.
Ford spent about five hours at city hall before he visited Muzik.
He was not visibly impaired when he arrived just after 5 p.m. But his speech was “slurred,” according to the documents, when he approached the security desk around 10:25 p.m.
He allegedly commented on the biceps of one of the guards and gave them both green beads. He also mentioned that he was going to meet Justin Bieber. Then he “suddenly” began talking about the guard who wrote the memo about his wild behaviour at city hall on St. Patrick’s Day of 2012, complaining that he had been “screwed over by security.”
“You can report that too,” he shouted to the guards as he walked toward the doors, according to the documents. He was unable to figure out how to exit, and a guard had to inform him that he had to press a button; he responded by asking why the guard hadn’t told him this earlier.
Ford did encounter Bieber at Muzik. He reacted furiously when Bieber jokingly asked him if he had brought any crack cocaine. An hour later, he ventured into a washroom; he emerged an hour after that appearing heavily impaired, sources have told the Star.
Three of the city’s highest-paid employees — Pennachetti, chief financial officer and deputy city manager Rob Rossini, and chief corporate officer Josie Scioli — met with Ford six days later to discuss the incident. Pennachetti asked the mayor to apologize. The documents do not say if he did.
At a separate meeting of city hall security staff, guards were reminded of “protections afforded to city employees in the course of their job performance.”
The 2012 memo that prompted Ford’s anger was written by Davood Mohammadi, who still works for the city but not at city hall. Mohammadi wrote that Ford was “very intoxicated,” swore at a member of his own staff, and came to the security desk at 2:30 a.m. with a “half-empty bottle of St.-Remy French Brandy.”
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