TOILET RULED A PRIVATE SPACE

KITCHENER -- A Kitchener man walked away from a drug charge yesterday
after a judge ruled Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects a
man's privacy inside a public washroom stall.

Justice Colin Westman said a Waterloo regional police officer violated
Michael Pietrangelo's "reasonable expectation of privacy" when he
pushed open a washroom door at Tommy's Place bar on July 25, 1998.

Constable Jamie Gillespie, in the washroom to check for illegal drug
activity, opened the swinging saloon-style doors of the stall several
centimetres and looked in.

Pietrangelo, 35, was snorting cocaine inside the stall, the
prosecution alleged. Gillespie searched him, found a gram of cocaine
in a shirt pocket and charged him with possession.

The judge said other courts have ruled that a police search cannot be
justified by its results, and that citizens should be free from
government intrusion inside the closed cubicle of a washroom.