The recent story in Toronto Life boils my blood. Just scroll down and quickly look at the pictures of the people who have complaints about a night club wanting to possibly expand their capabilities and obtain a new liquor license and it’s pretty obvious that these people don’t go out past 9 pm at night. Which is partly why they generalize about the nightlife scene in Toronto and where they think it should be moved to Downsview (but more on that later). Out of the six people who have provided their age the average age is 66 years old. I don’t know about you but I don’t know many 66-year-olds who have a clue on what people who are literally a third to half their age want to do when they go out at night or in the case of this complex during the day.
They just want to complain about the loud noise and talk about the drug use and violence. So, let me get this straight, when you are sitting in your bed at 12 am on a Saturday night and a fight breaks out (which it almost never does) inside the club and the clubs highly trained and professional security quickly breaks it up and ask those who are involved to leave; how is it that this violence affects you when you are on the island? It doesn’t. They just want to say it does. As for the noise, yes night clubs are loud and they have worked hard to insulate the interior space and with some proper sound engineer’s I am sure they can work to direct the sound outside more so it doesn’t affect the island as much but during the day in the summer when they have their daytime events the sound will travel and they need to just deal with it.
As someone who has been to this establishment and goes out regularly to Toronto events, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the security always checks for weapons and drugs and do an excellent job at deterring drug use inside the clubs. The owner of this club knows Toronto’s scene inside and out and ensures his club is keeping people safe both inside and out, otherwise people would never return. It’s impossible to have no drug use but you can ensure you have trained professionals on site to deal with anyone who might have gone a little too far and they do.
Now, let’s talk about the location of this establishment.
Have you been down to Polson Street or on Cherry Street? Its baron, especially on the weekends and evenings. So why is it that this is not a perfect spot for a venue like this?
The people in the article suggest it should be at Downsview, well last checked the club attracts people who live downtown and in the surrounding area, why would anyone want to go to Downsview on a regular basis? Yes, there is a subway stop there but the subway doesn’t run at night so it’s no help but you can take the bus to Cherry Street or take a quick Taxi/Uber home instead of a huge fair to and from Downsview.
The people in the article say its too big and it will attract too much traffic. Again, there is no one down there so who is it that is be affected by this traffic? As for the size of the space, yes, it’s big and yes they want the ability to host larger events there and I say support it. Toronto is trying to market itself as a world-class city and a city of music. You can’t do that by not allowing large venues to exist because they need to be here as there is a huge demand for it and all those people need somewhere to go. Every world class city has embraced nightclubs and club culture from Berlin to Tokyo to Montreal and if Toronto wants to keep up we need to support these venues through loosening of liquor laws and changing bylaws to allow for these businesses to exist.
It’s time for Toronto’s NIMBY’ism to end and this would be a great start.