Nota bene Big Brother: Don't mess with Tony Hutton.
In the last week, Mr. Hutton won $25,000 at the slots at Mohawk Racetrack; was refused his payout because he didn't have the requisite government-issued photo identification; enlisted a big-time Toronto lawyer to make a call on his behalf; saw the house rules suddenly bent such that he was able to collect his cheque without the demanded I.D. -- and in the midst of all that, found himself one night being insulted and pushed to the pavement by a man claiming to be a biker.
"He called me a crackhead -- twice," Mr. Hutton said yesterday at one of his favourite haunts, Master Steaks, in an industrial part of northern Mississauga.
He put a hand to a red mark on his forehead. "I got that when he pushed me down," he said with a rueful grin. When the man did it a second time, Mr. Hutton was reluctantly moved to dispatch him with a few short, sharp punches.
The 45-year-old, who buys and sells vehicles for a living, has a veritable gift for getting the last laugh.
"Edward told me," he said of Edward Sapiano, the criminal lawyer who made the critical phone call to Mohawk, "you don't just have horseshoes up your ass, you got the horse and the buggy too."
The story began last Saturday when Mr. Hutton, en route to his cottage in Port Elgin, Ont., stopped by at Mohawk, the harness racing track near Guelph, for a go at the slot machines.
He put in a $100 bill (for 20 credits, each worth $5 a pop), and had worked his way up to 71 credits when, as Kenny Rogers sang in The Gambler, he knew it was time to walk away, and pressed the magic button and prepared to cash out.
Instead, he hit the $25,000 jackpot.
The alarm signalling a major win went off, it was duly verified by the staff, and Mr. Hutton was asked for identification.
He produced approximately eight pieces -- two bank cards; a fish and game licence issued by the Ontario government; a Canadian Tire card; his Laborers' International Union of North America membership card (complete with his social insurance number on it) of which he is so proud; his ratty old Nova Scotia birth certificate; a chequebook with his name and address on it, and, in a little plastic slip, his tattered and well-worn SIN card.
"They said it wasn't sufficient," Mr. Hutton said. "They said I had to have government photo I.D.
"I said, 'There's nothing on the walls about that', and they said that's our policy, our rules. Well, they're only interested in the rules when I was winning; they don't ask me for I.D. when I'm losing."
Now, while the staff was engaged in a furious confab about what to do, Mr. Hutton did not just sit idly about on his sunshiney rear. He fed some more dough into the slots, and won another couple of thousand, which, because the payout was less than $10,000, he was allowed to cash in.
Then they told him he had to vamoose, and he left, clutching a customer dispute form which reads, under Nature of Dispute, "Patron won $25,000. No Photo Valid Gov't I.D. Jackpot verified. Patron will return for payment."
Over the next couple of days, he said in the lovely accent he carries from his Antigonish, N.S., boyhood, Mohawk staff kept badgering him to hurry up, get that photo identification.
"One guy said, 'We'll give you three or four weeks', and I said, you'll give me what I need. I'm the one that won. You owe me. I don't owe you guys anything."
But he was also in a bit of a bother: Due to a transgression or two as a young man, he has an aged criminal record, and so can't get a passport, and he years ago gave up his driver's licence.
That's when he called Mr. Sapiano, who called the slot people, confirmed the basics, and thundered on about how, on the eve of Remembrance Day, which honours the soldiers who died for freedom, folks without the right I.D. are being turned into "second-class citizens."
Mr. Sapiano credits the racetrack with resolving matters quickly. And yesterday, Teresa Roncon, the spokeswoman for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which operates the province's casinos, apologized.
She said there are signs at Mohawk's cages, where winners are paid out, explaining the photo-identification requirements, but said that since Mr. Hutton wasn't demanding cash, but rather a cheque, he should have gotten it pronto. "There was confusion at the site," she said. "It was a staff error."
But the legislation that spawned the photo-I.D. provision -- the federal government's Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Funding Act, which makes it mandatory for banks and casinos and the like to report cash transactions of more than $10,000 -- is not always so easily resolved.
"When a man can't even collect on a bet without government-approved identification," Mr. Sapiano said yesterday, "it's a manifestation of the terrible road we're on, where we are all deemed criminals by our own government unless we can prove otherwise."
Mr. Hutton picked up his cheque on Wednesday night, when, he said, "All of a sudden, I'm the best guy in the place. Their attitude changed overnight. It's all because of Edward: He says, 'That's why I'm good; it's this big mouth I was born with.' "
Mr. Hutton fears for the many seniors, and tourists, he sees at the various casinos and racetracks he frequents. "Some poor landed immigrant, or some 85-year-old guy who wins, you tell him he can't collect his winnings, he might die right there in his wheelchair," he said. "You shouldn't have to be government-approved to exist in this country."
He has no big plans for his windfall, and was remarkably unimpressed by it. But Mr. Hutton, with his great hazel eyes and a certain rugged charm, is not unaware that others may be more keenly interested.
"Are you married?" I asked.
"Nope," he said, adding, with another big grin, "But I might be in another week or two."