The price of racism:
The Magistrate's Court in Nazareth recently ruled that a B&B owner will compensate two brothers of Ethiopian descent, after refusing to rent them the vacation apartment based on their background.
The court accepted the lawsuit, which was filed through legal aid at the Ministry of Justice and in collaboration with the government unit for coordinating the fight against racism at the Ministry of Justice, according to which the business owner behaved in violation of the Anti-Discrimination in Products, Services and Public Access Act.
Details of the case: The plaintiffs called the defendant, who owns a B&B in the north, and asked him to rent two vacation units for one night.
In response, the owner of the B&B replied that he was not interested in renting the B&B to the plaintiffs because he had previous unsuccessful experience with guys of the same origin.
The telephone conversation was recorded by the plaintiffs, and the recording was submitted, along with a transcript of a conversation, to the court.
Defendant denied the allegations, claiming there were two calls, and Plaintiff only recorded the second, after deliberately dragging the second call to "where he wanted to go," he claimed.
He further claimed that the opposition was to rent out the B&B to young guys, due to previous experience of renting the unit to guys who made noise and caused damage to the place.
Defendant further argued that his preference was to rent to families and not to young men, regardless of one origin or another.
In his summaries he also argued against the admissibility of the transcript and the admissibility of the recording of the conversation.
Despite his allegations, the recording was heard at a court hearing.
The Honorable Justice Rim Nadaf ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered a total amount of compensation of NIS 20,000, not including legal expenses and attorney's fees.
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