Four months and two city blocks from where Halifax Alehouse bouncers Alexander Pishori Levy and Matthew Brenton Day are accused of assaulting a patron on an October night, the pair will appear at the Halifax provincial courthouse to enter their pleas on the morning of Friday, Feb. 17.
Both Levy, 37, and Day, 33, face one count each of assault. The two were initially scheduled to appear in the Spring Garden Road court on Jan. 23, but neither attended that first court date in person; instead, a lawyer spoke on their behalf. As Global News first reported, a patron alleges the two—who work as security staff at the Alehouse—assaulted him after escorting him out of the bar early in the morning on Oct. 10, 2022.
Halifax Regional Police told The Coast that officers arrived at the Alehouse shortly after 2:35am following a call about an “unwanted person” at 5287 Prince Street. When the HRP arrived, Alehouse staff were restraining a man on the sidewalk. That man, Alehouse staffers allege, had been damaging property inside the bar. But that story doesn’t match with what the man who was being restrained remembers. And while the charges against Levy and Day have not been tested in court, the allegations are the latest in a series of claims against the Alehouse and its security staff, who have been accused of being “overly eager to resort to violence.”
‘If they didn’t show up, God knows’
As CBC News reported earlier this month, a 21-year-old man claims he was ordering a beer at the Alehouse on Oct. 10 when a bouncer tapped his shoulder and told him to leave. He says he wasn’t given a reason why. The man—who CBC hasn’t named “to protect his privacy”—claims that once he was escorted outside, the Alehouse’s bouncers taunted him, before one bouncer punched him on the side of the head. He claims that he was held in a chokehold, punched in the face and stomped on by several of the Alehouse’s bouncers. The Coast reached out to the Alehouse’s ownership and management for a response, but did not receive one before publication.
The man says he blacked out and woke up in police handcuffs, lying face down on Prince Street.
When officers turned him over and saw his face, “they pulled me out of the handcuffs right away,” he told CBC News. “If they didn’t show up, God knows, I mean it very well could have went sideways.”
‘They had a gauntlet of strikes waiting for me’
October’s alleged incident is one of several The Coast is aware of involving Alehouse bouncers in recent months. As we reported in January, Zach (not his real name) tells The Coast he still feels the occasional twinge in his ribs more than half a year after he says he was assaulted by the Brunswick Street pub’s bouncers during a night out at the bar on June 25, 2022.
It was around 3:25am—minutes before closing time. Zach says he was over-served that night but wasn’t disturbing anyone. Three bouncers came to escort him out of the bar. He was “unharmed” while in view of the other patrons, he tells The Coast, but once they reached the Alehouse’s back stairwell, there was a “gauntlet of strikes waiting” for him.
“I quickly tore my arms away to protect my face, so I didn’t get a good visual,” he claims, “but there had to be a bare minimum of three people striking me simultaneously.” (The Coast hasn’t been able to confirm if Levy or Day were working at the Alehouse that night, or if they were among the alleged group of security staff involved.)
Zach covered his face, but says he ended up with “two shiners,” skin torn off his bicep and a “cracked/broken rib” that he claims took nine weeks to heal. He sent time-stamped photos of one black eye and a skinned bicep to The Coast, along with brief video footage of his removal from the Alehouse’s dance floor, but says he opted not to press charges due to “circumstances surrounding my employment.” (For this reason, we’ve granted his request for anonymity.)
Now, he says, he’s reconsidering his reticence to press charges.
“They cannot uphold their liquor license obligations and cannot be relied on to mind the well-being of their patrons,” Zach tells The Coast.
Zach’s claims against the Alehouse and its bouncers have not been tested in court—and to The Coast’s knowledge, no Alehouse bouncers have been arrested in the wake of the alleged June incident. Over the past six weeks, we’ve reached out to the Alehouse for comment on several occasions by phone, email and in-person. We have yet to receive a reply.
Liquor license complaint lodged on Dec. 25
Zach’s liquor license complaints aren’t an isolated case. As first reported by The Coast, the province’s Alcohol, Gaming, Fuel and Tobacco division received a liquor licensing complaint against the Alehouse on Dec. 25, 2022.
The complaint alleges that the Alehouse’s security staff, over the past near-decade, “have been overly eager to resort to violence.” Last August, footage surfaced of as many as four men—several wearing what appear to be bar staff shirts—pinning a man to the ground for close to two minutes outside of the Alehouse before turning him over to police. At one point, a man wearing a staff-emblazoned shirt employs what looks like a headlock.
The CBC obtained records of a lawsuit stemming from that incident, which the suit claims happened at the Alehouse on Aug. 14, 2022. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges that he was “attacked from behind and wrestled to the ground where multiple bouncers restrained him, strangled him, and punched him.” The plaintiff claims he was at the bar when he saw his friends sitting outside on the Alehouse’s sidewalk patio. When he joined them, he says he was told by Alehouse security staff to leave—then attacked by those staff when he asked if he could finish his drink first.
The Coast is not aware of any police arrests or criminal charges that stemmed from August’s incident. We’ve asked the Alehouse about the incident, but did not receive a reply before publication.
Police investigation into Sawyer’s death continues
Nearly two months since Ryan Michael Sawyer was found unresponsive on the sidewalk outside of the Alehouse in the early morning hours of Dec. 24, 2022, the HRP has yet to announce any charges or updates in its investigation. The Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service has ruled Sawyer’s death, which stemmed from a reported “disturbance involving several people” at Brunswick and Prince Streets, as a homicide. Police initially arrested one man, but released him without charges. A Dec. 24 HRP release said police were “not looking for any additional suspects.” The HRP has not disclosed any arrests since.
Police have not shared whether the Alehouse or any of its staff are under investigation in Sawyer’s death, but photos provided to The Coast from the night of the incident show a police officer in the upstairs window of the Brunswick Street bar. Sawyer himself was found on Prince Street, not far from the Alehouse’s side door.
It’s unclear from police reports whether Sawyer’s killing started with a dispute in the Alehouse or at one of the neighbouring bars, or how he ended up unresponsive on the Prince Street sidewalk on the morning of Dec. 24. According to a source connected to the family, Sawyer and his brother had gone out for dinner downtown with their parents that evening, then watched Canada play Finland in a World Junior pre-tournament friendly.
Numerous questions continue to surround Sawyer’s death. We still don’t know what factors led the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service to rule his death a homicide. We don’t know who police arrested and released on the morning of Dec. 24. We also don’t know how many people were involved in the initial “disturbance,” who killed Sawyer or whether any charges are forthcoming.
Several social media reports have linked the incident as having involved a bouncer at the Alehouse, but The Coast has not been able to substantiate those accounts at this time—and the HRP has declined to comment further.
“With any investigation,” HRP spokesperson Cst. John MacLeod says, “we wouldn’t provide any information in relation to any of the individuals involved until we’re at a position where we’re laying charges, and those charges have been sworn before the courts.”
The Coast has reached out to the Alehouse’s ownership and management for comment on what happened on the night of Dec. 23 and morning of Dec. 24. We have yet to receive a reply.
