Police call mayor’s office after city councillor’s night in drunk tank

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This article was published 08/11/2015 (3679 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg city councillor Ross Eadie admits he spent a night in the drunk tank over the weekend but is incensed that police informed the mayor’s office.

The Mynarski councillor says he was drinking Friday night at a number of locations and was taken by police to the Main Street Project after the bars closed.

The Main Street Project, on Martha Street, is the only shelter and drop-in centre downtown that will take people if they’re intoxicated.

Eadie admits he had “way too much to drink” and had passed out in a cab when the police were called. But he said doesn’t remember what happened after that.

“What happened is I had several drinks too much to have and I was with a friend. He put me in a taxi and I guess I probably passed out in the taxi and the taxi driver must have called to get assistance to get me out of the taxi,” Eadie, who is legally blind, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

“If you wake up a blind guy who’s drunk, probably the first thing I’d do is try to push people away or whatever.”

“Someone from the mayor’s office called me and said that I assaulted somebody or something, a paramedic or something,” he said.

“It’s interesting in that I don’t understand why you would call the mayor,” he said.

“Why would you, the police, call the mayor? I’m 55 years old. I obviously had too much to drink. Why would you call the mayor, though? I don’t understand that. He’s not my father. I’m not accountable to him, so for me, it was kind of like, wow, what’s that all about.”

City spokeswoman Carmen Barnett said the mayor was not available Sunday and “he would not comment on this personal matter.”

Eadie said he and a friend had been drinking at The King’s Head pub in the Exchange District Friday, had a few more drinks at the Urban Shaman art show where he bought some art, and then they went to another bar.

“I’ll just tell you, (a friend) put me in a taxi on Main Street after the bar closed and all I can figure is that I probably passed out in a taxi. Nobody told me anything. I’m just telling you what more than likely happened,” Eadie said.

“Given how drunk I was, probably passed out in the car. If I was a taxi driver, what I would probably do is call the cops. Wouldn’t you?

“They took me over to the Main Street Project and let me out at 10 o’clock Saturday morning.”

Eadie said he has not been charged with anything.

A Winnipeg police spokesman said late Sunday he had no information on the incident.

A source told the Free Press Eadie was verbally abusive to police, prompting a senior officer to report his behaviour to the mayor’s office.

Eadie said he did not knowingly lash out at anyone.

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“And again, if you wake up somebody who is totally drunk and you’re blind and you don’t know where you are, more than likely, because I don’t remember, more than likely I probably tried to push them away. Leave me alone. I just want to go home.”

Asked if he wanted to add anything or if he had any regrets about what happened, Eadie said, “I don’t think any of it is newsworthy. I had too much to drink.”

Eadie was first elected to city council in the Mynarski ward in 2010, then re-elected in 2014.

He worked previously as a policy analyst with the provincial Department of Labour and Immigration, and as a school trustee with the Seven Oaks School Division, his election website states.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca