Village gay bar to open

By Isaac Würmann

When Centretown Pub closed on Jan. 15, Shawn Pudsey said it was “like a death in the family.”

The longstanding pub was the oldest gay bar in Ottawa and served the heart of the city’s gay village for more than three decades in a heritage building on Somerset Street just east of Bank Street. Pudsey said he hopes to fill the void left by Centretown Pub’s closure.

At the end of March, right across the street, he plans to open a new bar called T’s Pub with co-owners Stanton Lowe and Les Cameron.

“Historically, gay bars have always been like a community centre,” Pudsey said.

“I think it started off for reasons of safety,” he says.

“You knew when you went into a gay bar that everyone in there was like-minded.”

When it opens, T’s Pub will have three rooms, including a karaoke lounge and a private room with bottle service.

Pudsey said he expects the bar will attract the “classic gay urban professional.”

T’s Pub will join a growing number of bars and restaurants that have opened on the block of Somerset between Bank and O’Connor Street in the past year, including Fairouz and Prohibition Public House.

“This is going to become a little bit of a happening street,” he said.

“This is going to be the heart of the gay village for some time to come.”

However, he acknowledged T’s Pub is opening at a time when business can be harder than in the past for gay bars.

“With people now feeling safe enough to go to straight bars for the most part, it’s made it a little bit harder for gay bars to survive,” he said.

Although the former owners of Centretown Pub could not be reached, a post on the bar’s Facebook page on Jan. 17 said the reasons it closed included “rising operational costs” and a “steady decline of foot traffic.”

Despite challenges, Pudsey said he thinks there is “still a place in the gay community for gay bars.”

One of the roles of a gay bar is to support other organizations in the community, said Pudsey.

Before it even opens, T’s Pub will be operating under a special permit from March 3-5 for a fundraiser for Bruce House, a Centretown-based organization founded in 1998 that provides people living with HIV/AIDS with housing, care and support.

Over the years, a lot of gay bars have opened and closed along Bank Street, according to Glenn Crawford, former chair of the Village Committee and a researcher of local queer history.

The owners of Centretown Pub also owned a bar called Icon before it closed in 2004, Crawford said.

At the corner of Bank and Gilmour, there was another bar called Wet Lounge, and on Frank Street there was Franky’s.

“We’ve moved wherever we found safe spaces,” Crawford said. He said he created the Village Committee in 2006 to advocate for the recognition of a gay village because of the growing number of queer businesses opening around the Bank and Somerset area.

“The community has to support the businesses and the businesses have to support us,” said Crawford.

“And if we’re not supporting them then they close, and we lose that safe space and that legacy.”