TORONTO -- An adult-entertainment night club went ahead with a dwarf-tossing contest last night despite an angry Ontario politician's eleventh-hour bid to stop it. "My community is up in arms," said deputy Liberal leader Sandra Pupatello, who represents the Windsor riding where the contest took place last night. "This, in my opinion, sets us back generations."

The contest took place at a strip club called the Leopards Lounge and Broil and featured audience members hurling a helmeted four-foot-eight performer, who goes by the stage name Tripod.

Pupatello introduced a private member's bill to ban dwarf tossing and pleaded with the legislature to push it through immediately.

But the Tory government said it needed more time to review the bill's implications.

Event organizer Renaldo Agostino said the club had received both positive and negative feedback about the contest, but dismissed suggestions it was exploitative.

"This guy is a dwarf . . . He's looking to make his mark in the entertainment business," he said.

The star of the contest defended himself in a recent newspaper interview.

"I'm doing this because I want to," said Bradley, who didn't want his last name used. "I'm an adult . . . I don't need anyone telling me what I can or can't do."

The report called Bradley, 20, a "regular on the local adult-entertainment scene" who works days in a grocery store.

Under Pupatello's bill, those who engage in dwarf-tossing could be fined as much as $5,000 and jailed for six months.

Public Security Minister Bob Runciman condemned the contest and urged the bar to call it off.

Runciman said jurisdictions from Florida to France have banned dwarf-tossing and said the attorney general's office was looking at all the options.

But Agostino went ahead with the contest anyway.