Crown alleges former Calgary bar owner sexually abused five women who were plied with booze before encounters

Five different women who worked with former Calgary bar owner Grant Cichacki were sexually abused by him over a 13-year period, a prosecutor charged Wednesday.

And in his opening address in Cichacki’s Calgary Court of King’s Bench trial, Crown lawyer Peter Mackenzie alleged each of the women were plied with alcohol, and were unable to consent, before the sexual encounters.

“The prosecution alleges that Grant Cichacki committed a sexual assault, or sexual assaults against five women,” Mackenzie told Justice Nick Devlin.

“The sexual assaults were committed in different years.”

Mackenzie said in each incident, which occurred between 2006 and 2019, Cichacki was out socializing with the women.

“Each of these women will advise they knew the accused from their experience working with him in the bar industry in Calgary,” the prosecutor said.

“Each will advise that the alleged sexual assault occurred during a social outing of some description with the accused. Each will allege that the sex that they did not, or could not, consent to happened at Grant Cichacki’s home.”

Mackenzie told Devlin that each woman was consuming alcohol along with the accused at the time.

“All will say that when they had sexual contact with the accused, they felt impaired, felt they were going in and out of consciousness or felt that they had lost consciousness or were asleep.”

Cichacki faces five counts of sexual assault involving incidents between May 2006, and April 2019.

He had faced a separate allegation involving a sixth complainant, but the prosecution stayed that charge in 2024, after reviewing the woman’s trial testimony.

During that hearing, Cichacki denied any wrongdoing and said the allegations against him forced him to sell off his shares in four Calgary clubs he held ownership in.

In his opening at the currently scheduled four-week trial, Mackenzie alleged all five women didn’t, or couldn’t, consent to having sex with the accused.

“It will be the prosecution position that each of these women either did not consent to the sexual contact she had with the accused or that she was unconscious or incapacitated and could not have provided subjective consent to sexual contact with the accused,” he said.

The prosecutor also told Devlin he will argue the testimony of each woman amounts to similar fact evidence against the accused which can be used to prove the allegations of the other complainants.

The trial is scheduled to run to Nov. 6.