The fact that you see bylaw at the door more than OPS suggests to me that, whatever was going on at that point in time, it was of greater concern to bylaw than to police. I’ve read elsewhere that there was some pro-protester streaming taking place within the cafe, with deliberate and defiance of some of the Covid precautions as an attempt to provoke a law enforcement response.
Smashing into the business to enforce essentially a bylaw matter (while they were streaming live on YouTube) could easily have become a flashpoint in the context of the larger ongoing situation. This took place Sunday afternoon; there were a lot of protesters still in the area, pissed off, but without a specific plan or any focal point for what to do next.
A business can be ticketed later. Suspects can be IDed and apprehended later. Part of professional policing is having the sense and discretion to recognize where a specific enforcement objective might fit into a bigger picture. As it is, that situation did not escalate farther, when it easily could have.
(Edit to add: this is from what I see in a relatively brief look, and the presence of a definite bylaw vehicle parked right in front. I could always be wrong.)
