Ban on new places of worship upheld in Montreal's Outremont borough

A bylaw prohibiting new places of worship on one ofOutremont'smain streets has been upheld.

Residents votedSunday in a referendumwhether to overturn the banon Bernard Avenue, a tree-lined strip dotted with restaurants, cafs and residential buildings.

A total of 1,561 residents voted in favour of upholding the controversialbylaw, while 1,202 voted against it.

The bylaw, introduced last year, forbids new temples of worshipof any denomination from opening on the street. But the borough's sizable and fast-growing Ultra-Orthodox population feels targeted.

"It's very disappointing," said AbrahamEkstein, a leader in the Hasidic community.

Eksteinbelieves theresults will further divide the community of Outremont, adding that he is prepared to take the issue before the courts.

"Bernard was the last zone where we could build synagogues and this ends it," said Ekstein. "So I said that all the time during the campaign in a constitutional democracythe right of the majority is not to discriminate against the minority."

"We will for sure use the rights of the constitution, we will for sure go to court."

• LATEST:Hasidic community has grounds for constitutional challenge, experts say

Heated debate

Referendums on municipal bylaws don't usually attract much attention.However, the vote has received intensemedia coverage, and emergedasthe latestflashpointin the province's continued debate over religious accommodation.

Citizen groups on both sides hadboth produced flyers to maketheir case and turnoutin advance polls last weekend was high.

The bylaw wasintroduced in 2015, not long after the borough approved a permit for a synagogue on Bernard.

Not long after, the borough decidedtopass a law banning all new places of worshipon two key arteries,Bernard Avenue andLaurierAvenue, with the aim of creating "winning conditions" for local businesses.

TheLaurierban wasn't contested and the other major street, VanHorneAvenue,hashad a similar ban since the late1990s.

A vote in favour of the Bernard banwould therefore effectively block any new synagogues in the borough.

The business case

Several merchants have come out in favour of the ban, arguing another place of religious worship would hurt business.

FrancineBrule,co-ownerof the LesEnfantsTerribles, a high-end bistro on Bernard, said many people in the Hasidic community don't frequent her restaurant or other businesses in the area.

"They do their own things and that's OK," she said. "But if there's more and more and more, the other stores and the other restaurants will suffer,I think."

However, MindyPollak, the first and onlyHasidic Jew to be elected to city council,said thepro-business argument "just doesn't hold water."

She pointed to Parc Avenue, located just outside the Outremont borough boundary, where synagogues recently opened up on a "block that was completely abandoned and neglected before. So obviously, not bad for commercial use."

Long history in Outremont

This isn't the first time Outremont, which is home to a large and wealthy francophone population, has been the site of conflict with the Hasidic community.

In the past, the community has engaged in battles with Outremont council over the use of charter buses in residential streets and the placement of the eruv, the symbolic enclosure made of string used to carry items on the Sabbath.

In 2006, news that the neighbourhood YMCA had switched to frosted windows to obscure Hasidic students' view of women in exercise wear spurred a debate over the reasonable accommodation of minorities which has never quite subsided.

Earlier this year, a Hasidic school near Outremont was raided by youth protection officials because of concern it was not following the provincial curriculum.

Louis Rousseau, a religious studies professor at University of Quebec in Montreal,said prior to the result it will be difficult to find asolution that satisfies everyone.

"A referendum is supposed to be the democratic solution, but it's clear not everyone will be happy with the result," he said.

• ANALYSIS |Hasidic school raid puts spotlight on conundrum facing Education Ministry