by: peter hum
after just a few days, a growing online list of ontario businesses that had vaccination policies and promoted the vaccination of their staff has shut down because some of those businesses faced reprisals.
“whenever i add a new business, there is a group of people (a small minority), who attack those businesses by leaving fake google reviews, making false bookings at their restaurants, and sending hateful messages to them,” the person behind the list at safetodo.ca said on twitter on tuesday night.
“i cannot, therefore, in good conscience continue to add businesses to the website, because i cannot be certain that they will not be attacked by the same people,” the person continued, explaining why he took down the list, which was called safeto-do.
“this was truly unexpected,” he continued. “i started this website less than a week ago, and it was intended to be apolitical and to provide a resource for those who had lower risk tolerances and/or medical conditions that made covid high risk for them.”
news reports identified the creator of the list as brandon mattalo, a toronto lawyer who himself was looking for a gym that required vaccinations. last week, goodlife fitness, the largest health club company in canada, tweeted that it would not require staff or members to be vaccinated and that it would disclose information about the vaccination status of staff.