By André Fecteau
The Ottawa-Gatineau Gay Pride Festival is in trouble. This year’s festivities, held in August, lost $13,000, adding to a $120,000 deficit incurred over the last few years.
Pride committee board member Shaleena Theophilus attributes the festival’s woes to a lack of support from the gay community. She says that “if there were more community support, there would be no deficit.”
However, some gay-friendly Centretown business owners blame the Pride committee that organizes the festival. They say they are fed up by the committee’s behaviour and are reluctant to support the festival in the future.
“I support Pride,” says Robert Giacobbi, co-owner of Wilde’s, a gay sex store on Bank Street, “but I don’t support the Pride committee.”
This year, Wilde’s and the Pride committee became embroiled in a dispute over Wilde’s banners. Giacobbi says the committee lost $500 worth of banners he lent them two years ago. When he claimed reimbursement from the committee, the board accused him of “stealing from the (gay) community.”
After that, he says, the Pride committee made no attempt to make Wilde’s a part of the Pride festival.
“I felt blacklisted,” says Giacobbi, adding there is still an unspent $5,000 to $7,000 allotted to the street festival in Wilde’s budget.
“Nobody came and ask me (to participate in Pride). Not a single person,” says Giacobbi. He says he didn’t receive any festival programmes, although Wilde’s is a major distribution point in the gay community.
Giacobbi says it’s not the first time dealing with the committee has been a problem. “It depends who’s on the board,” he says. “Some years it’s good, but most aren’t.”
Swizzles Bar & Grill, on Queen Street, also had problems with the committee. Owner Tanja Pecnik says she was treated really badly, but wouldn’t elaborate.
“They play favourites,” she says. “They give certain things only to certain businesses.” Pecnik declined further comments because of the repercussions it could have on her three-year-old business. “I don’t know if I want to support them again,” she says.
However, some Pride committee board members place the blame on the businesses. “Some businesses are really good, but others don’t really care,” says Darren Fisher. As an example, he says some businesses bought ads to be published in the Pride Guide, but payments are still pending.
Giacobbi disagrees. “The support from the community is there.” He says he knows that because he deals with it everyday. “But it’s not there to support half-asses.”
He says part of the problem is the lack of continuity on the board. “I’m not saying the committee does a bad job, because they are well-meaning people,” he says. “But (business owners) feel it’s not well-organized,” says Giacobbi.
At this year’s festival, logos from many major gay-friendly businesses including Centretown Pub, Steamworks, One In Ten, Edge Club and Lounge, and Wilde’s. were nowhere to be seen at the Festival Plaza site in front of City Hall,
Tom Ramsay, owner of gay sex shop One In Ten on Bank Street, says he believes in the festival, but that, as a business, Pride costs him money. “We have to make a living and (Pride) doesn’t do anything for me,” he says. Because the festival was moved this year to Festival Plaza, the day of the parade was “just a regular Sunday” for his business, he says.
He says Pride should be run as a business rather than a festival. “If it were a business, they would be bankrupt now,” says Ramsey. He suggested they need to pay staff, to seek government funding and donations from big businesses, and most of all, have better fundraising.
The Ottawa-Gatineau Pride committee elected four new members to its board at its general meeting earlier this month. They joined six continuing members. According to Fisher, this is part of a new strategy to have continuity on the board.
Despite the problems, there is little chance that the festival will not continue. “It’s not being cancelled,” says Theophilus.