When a colleague flipped me a chronological list of legal decisions in this country involving Halifax’s official food, the donair, I was awed by the lateral thinking that must have occurred to undertake such research.
When I asked why this notion occurred to him in the first place, he replied with what can only describe as a digital shrug.
“I’m not the most normal person, plus it’s fun,” my co-worker said, in a statement of unequivocal truth.
If it had been a little later in the day I would have picked up a large with the works, perhaps even a donair pizza, a personal favourite, along with the requisite pile of two dozen napkins to handle the ensuing mess.
But it was just midmorning, so, I just started reading the first of the 58 decisions, that, if examined closely supply a sort of loose narrative of our most fabled dish’s role in Canadian life and, also underscores my friend’s view that court decisions can be, well, interesting.
In there, for instance, you would learn, in the oldest case on record in this country, about the former City of Dartmouth’s bid to stop Chafic Ramia — first with her husband, then as a widow — from switching her Dartmouth store over into a pizza and donair operation, perhaps making it one of the first corner stores offering this important menu option.
A convicted murderer in Halifax once tried to use a trip for donair meat as an alibi, while a harassing ex-boyfriend in British Columbia claimed that a visit to a donair restaurant is the only reason he happened to be in the vicinity of a young woman who had taken out a peace bond against him.
In 2005 a donair allegedly swiped from a workplace fridge was at the centre of a labour relations board dispute involving a sacked employee at a Saskatoon warehouse. A year later a donair trademark was at the centre of a dispute between duelling restaurateurs in Alberta.
Often times the lowly dish is a minor player in court proceedings. In 2013, evidence in an impaired driving case indicated that an Alberta driver had consumed nine alcoholic drinks and two slices of donair pizza before being pulled over in the wee small hours.
My reading tells me that three years later, according to another decision, some members of a notorious drug gang left a donair shop in Surrey, B.C. A high-speed police chase ensued, which ended with gunplay, a man shot, and a police officer charged with careless use of a firearm. (He was later acquitted.)
Sometimes though, the meal is right in the middle of things. In 2017 a spat between restaurateur Jack Khoury and Nabil Toulany’s firm, Billy Stick Food Ltd., over the quality of the Nova Scotia company’s donair meat “cones” ended up in small claims court.
Khoury, “who claims credentials second to none as a donair expert in this region,” alleged that Toulany’s cones tended to split apart while roasting. He wanted $1,566 for his trouble. The adjudicator told them to split the cost.
One of my favourite cases in the list touches on the origin story of the donair in these parts.
It’s found in a 2012 suit brought by Bechora and Najat Toulany against Mohammed and Amjad Al‑Tawil.
The Al-Tawils bought the Toulany pizza donair business in north-end Halifax. After that, they alleged, they discovered that parts of the business were in breach of zoning laws.
The enterprise soon failed. The Al-Tawils declined to pony up the unpaid balance of the purchase price. So they found themselves in court.
The background in the judgement is what intrigues me. In 1973 — at right about the time that the donair, which so closely resembles the Greek gyro, was being born in these parts — a young Bechora Toulany moved from Lebanon to Halifax.
Two years later he opened a corner grocery store at 5553 Duffus St. selling groceries and his own meat, which he also sold wholesale to restaurants.
According to the decision “in cutting the meat he learned that the better cuts were popular, but his customers did not readily purchase the poorer cuts. He saw an opportunity in chopping and grinding the cheaper cuts to make donair meat.”
I know enough about Halifax culinary history to understand that from that humble beginning came Bash Toulaney’s fabled donair, which I have enjoyed frequently over the years.
I just needed a colleague with a keen eye to let me know that information is right there, in those fun court documents.
