THE lawyer for a North Shore man who stole cigarettes from London Drugs during the June 2011 Stanley Cup riot is asking a judge to let his client off without a criminal record.
Todd Gartland, 23, was among the crowd of looters who surged into the downtown London Drugs store at Granville and Georgia on the night of the riot after some people smashed the front windows of the store. Gartland was captured on security cameras walking into the store wearing a Canucks hockey jersey, then leaving moments later with two cartons of cigarettes.
Gartland has pleaded guilty to a charge of participating in a riot.
At a sentencing hearing Monday in Vancouver provincial court, Crown prosecutor Daniel Porte asked Judge Reginald Harris for a conditional sentence, arguing Gartland's conduct on the night of the riot contributed to destabilizing a downtown area "already being overrun with rioting, looting and mayhem."
But Gartland's defence lawyer Les Mackoff urged the judge to consider a conditional discharge, which would leave his client without a criminal record.
Mackoff said Gartland's actions were relatively minor, and amounted to a split second of bad judgment while drunk in an otherwise exemplary life. He said Gartland's ability to work as a sous chef might be hampered by a criminal record.
Porte told the judge Gartland had begun the evening with 10 pints of beer at the Cactus Club in West Vancouver on the night of the riot. He was heading to a friend's house in lower Lonsdale with a six-pack of "tall boy" beer when Gartland saw the smoke coming from downtown and decided to take the SeaBus over to watch the riot.
Eventually, Porte said, Gartland found himself outside the London Drugs store after rioters had smashed in the front windows. He decided to go into the store and took two cartons of cigarettes, which he almost immediately discarded.
"I was a drunk idiot. I went into London Drugs," he later told police. "I didn't destroy the city."
In court, the prosecutor played a 9-1-1 call from a security guard inside the store, who told police about 25 employees had sought safety in a secure basement room after looters smashed in the front doors.
"They're just flooding into the store," he told the 9-1-1 operator, estimating the number of looters at anywhere from 50 to 100 people. He added the looters were "stealing anything and everything."
In victim impact statements, other London Drugs employees described being terrified the looters would set fire to the store while they were inside it.
Gartland turned himself in six months after the riot, when the Vancouver police department posted a photo of him online as a suspected rioter.
Porte said getting caught up in the riot is no excuse for Gartland's behaviour. "It's a group as a whole committing criminal actions," he said.
Mackoff said Gartland has no criminal record and his actions were relatively minor compared to those of rioters who instigated events that night, taunted police or set cars on fire. Gartland has also had to deal with the notoriety of having his name show up in search engines as one of the rioters, he said.
If the judge grants Mackoff's request, it would be the first time one of the Stanley Cup rioters escaped without a criminal record. Most of the rioters have received conditional sentences of between three to five months.
At least three other North Shore rioters have already been sentenced for their roles in the melee.
Matthew William Cottrell, 24, who was among the rioters who broke into Sears, received a four-month conditional sentence - including three months of house arrest and one month on a curfew - plus eight months probation in January.
Julian Alexander Eiers, 21, who - like Gartland - looted in London Drugs, got a two-month conditional sentence - including one month of house arrest and one month of a curfew - plus nine months probation in February.
Jacob Pateman, 19, who was captured on video running into the downtown Sears store through the store's smashed glass doors, grabbing cosmetics from a display case, then running out again, also received a two-month conditional sentence last year.
