By Drew Davidson
Centretown may become prime real estate for new bar owners now that the Byward Market has closed its doors to new nightclubs for the next year.
The Aug. 23 motion passed by Ottawa’s city council puts a freeze on opening new bars, pubs and nightclubs in the Byward Market. The motion was proposed by Rideau-Vanier Coun. Georges Bédard at the request of the Byward Market Business Improvement Area, a group of business and property owners who work to strengthen their commercial district.
The freeze will be in place for one year while a land-use study assesses the area and determines if an existing bylaw regulating nightclubs needs to be strengthened.
While existing establishments applying for expansions or repairs will be exempted from the bylaw, entrepreneurs will have to find a new place to open their watering holes – and that area could be Centretown.
“We have an entertainment strip,” said Gerry Lepage, executive director of the Bank Street Promenade.
“On Elgin Street, space is obviously difficult to find so Bank Street certainly would come to mind.”
Business recruitment is one of the main activities undertaken by Ottawa’s 12 business improvement areas, including the Bank Street Promenade. This area and Elgin Street already host a number of popular nightspots but have significantly less compared to the Byward Market’s 15 nightclubs and 26 pubs, according to a report by city planning manager John Moser.
Jansa Jennings, executive director of the Byward Market Business Improvement Area, says as Ottawa’s number one tourist attraction, the Byward Market must provide something to see at both nine in the morning and nine at night. She says too many nightclubs leaves little room for daytime tourist attractions.
Now that real estate is unavailable for new bars in the Market, Jennings says owners will move to other locations.
“If they can’t build in the Market, they are probably going to look somewhere else,” said Jennings. “That could be Bank Street or Elgin Street.”
Bank Street was Scott Heffernan’s choice location when he opened Connor’s Gaelic Pub Maclaren Street earlier this month. Heffernan, who has worked in pubs on Elgin Street, Bank Street and in the Market, says Centretown offers an eclectic environment that other areas of the city cannot.
“You can have people in suits. You can have a courier who’s worked all day in the streets. You can have a couple that have no children who live downtown. You can have people from the gay community,” he said. “I’ve always loved that.”
Heffernan says because many of his customers in the Market were tourists, the bar did not have true regulars or the comfortable feeling of a real pub – a feeling he says is easy to find in Centretown.
Heffernan also says he would like to make his bar and Bank Street location a hotspot for revellers on occasions like St. Patrick’s Day.
“You need to make Bank Street a destination and Elgin Street a destination,” he says. “And you do that by cooperating and being respectful to other businesses.”
While the prospect of rowdy crowds and excessive noise are definitely a concern in maintaining this cooperation among these businesses and the community, Lepage says he is more concerned about further freezes in the neighbouring ward.
Council is currently debating another Bédard motion to freeze the number of social housing centres in Rideau-Vanier. Lepage says if this motion also goes through, many of these housing centres will be pushed into Centretown which he says already has its share.
“Coun. Bédard is not solving the problem,” says Lepage. “He’s merely transferring it to another area.”