Landlords for clubs and music venues are worried that a new Ontario law would slap them with fines or jail time for any drug activity that happens in their venues.
Bill 10, the Protect Ontario Through Safer Streets and Stronger Communities Act, has sparked concern from many groups, including supportive housing landlords who rent to tenants struggling with addictions. The bill would hold landlords responsible if their properties are used for producing or trafficking drugs. Another worry: the fallout for Ontario clubs, music venues and underground events.
“These kinds of fines are outrageous, and could reasonably shut down clubs and music venues permanently,” Diana Chan McNally told the electronic music platform Resident Advisor (RA). A DJ, legal advocate and public member of the City of Toronto’s Housing Rights Advisory Committee, McNally also warned the bill could deter new venues from opening, further drive drug use underground and increase overdoses.
“These kinds of fines are outrageous, and could reasonably shut down clubs and music venues permanently.”
The idea to make club owners and promoters take the heat for drug use at their venues comes from across the border. And its impacts there were chilling.
Then-senator Joe Biden enacted the 2001 RAVE Act and 2003 Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, which held club owners and promoters legally responsible for knowingly allowing drug use or distribution in their spaces. As a result, promoters avoided treating overdoses at their events, making raves more dangerous.
And when Orlando, Fla. passed a bill prohibiting clubs from renting out their spaces for alcohol-free after-hours raves in 1997, party organizers began throwing illegal raves outside city limits, further away from medical help.
For now, event organizers across Ontario are bracing themselves.
The bill passed into law on June 5, but is not yet being enforced — so landlords don’t yet know exactly what their new liabilities will be. “Until Bill 10 is applied, it won’t be actionable,” McNally tells The Grind.
RA reported McNally is mounting a court challenge against Bill 10, but she clarified to The Grind that her litigation targets Bill 6 — a different law that punishes unhoused people who use drugs in public.
This article appeared in the 2025 Oct/Nov issue.