Club Dead
Edmonton's nightclub impresarios fight bad reputations and cursed locations to serve libations
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Most nightclubs in Edmonton fail faster than a Hollywood marriage. A success story is any bar that can outlast the expiry date on the Bailey's in their cooler. Case in point: In 1997, the million-dollar nightclub KAOS opened its doors in West Edmonton Mall. The 35,000-sq.-ft. club soon became a popular haunt for the city's beautiful people, who lined up nightly to tip back martinis and out-sparkle one another under a haze of expensive lighting. But the superclub was quickly plagued with violence, the zenith of which was a near-riot involving 300 to 400 people in the summer of 1998. Police took the unprecedented step of issuing public warnings about KAOS, which helped prompt its highly publicized closure soon after. "If you don't have good standing in the community and you don't have a good relationship with law enforcement, you're going to have a very difficult time surviving," says American nightlife expert Rich Unger, the leading nightclub consultant on the Web. "You need to have zero tolerance when it comes to drugs, rowdy behaviour and anything that's detrimental to your customers' safety." When downtown nightspot Bronze on 5th first opened, it suffered a public relations crisis similar to that of KAOS, minus the after-hours violence. "It had the reputation of being an Asian gangster bar," says Jason Paul, general manager of Bronze. "It's intimidation. ... I wouldn't want to go to a club where 10 people are sitting in the corner staring at me." But new management reacted quickly to the situation by increasing security and implementing mandatory I.D.-scanning at the door. Since the change, Paul says attendance is way up. The failure rate for new clubs is about 50 per cent in the first year. According to Statistics Canada, there were 113 bar/nightclub/ tavern bankruptcies reported in Canada in 2001, although that doesn't include businesses that closed their doors without filing for bankruptcy. "Typically, ego and arrogance are the downfall of most nightclub owners," says Unger, who notes he comes across owners with self-destructive Superman complexes every day. Other common reasons for nightclub failures include location problems, such as traffic flow, visibility and parking, lack of knowledge by owners, lack of promoting, lack of capital and lack of atmosphere. Unger says hosting the wrong kind of promotion can also be a fatal error for nightclubs. "There's nothing but a price war going on out there between cheap drinks and free drinks and nobody wins a war like that," he says. "You'll bring in an undesirable patron who dresses like a slob, talks like a slob and only comes in for the cheap drinks." The bar and nightclub business in Canada is worth an estimated $23.8 billion, making ventures into the industry seem worth the risk. As of this month, there are more than 2,300 bars, taverns and nightclubs operating in Alberta, a figure based on licences granted by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission. One such bar opened last month in a notoriously unsuccessful nightclub location. Globe Tap, Bar & Grill is owned by Mark Fitton, a nightclub-savvy entrepreneur who is confident he has found the winning formula for the old morgue off of Jasper Avenue and 109th Street. "Times are different in the (downtown) core," he says. "We've got the right concept with a lot of money behind it and it's a beautiful room." Globe's head chef, David Gallo, is no stranger to the gothic, 74-year-old building. He worked as a waiter at the ill-fated restaurant Crazyhorse Saloon as well as its predecessor, Carlos O'Brian's. "This building has a history of bad owners and bad attitudes," Gallo says. "I just think we have to dust off the old cobwebs here so people will come in and take a look." Globe's people also had a group come in to "spiritually cleanse" the building before its grand opening. Just in case. "We feel the only spirits left are the good ones," Fitton says with a laugh. Vodka, gin, vermouth, whiskey, tequila ... . mharris@thejournal.southam.ca THERE'S ALWAYS NEW LIFE IN THE MORGUE The old morgue near Jasper Avenue and 109th Street has been a veritable graveyard for Edmonton nightclub owners. Here's a history: 1929 to 1988: Howard and McBride Limited, Funeral Directors 1992 to 1993: Carlos O'Brian's Fiesta Cantina 1993 to 1993: Crazyhorse Saloon 1993 to 1997: Club Malibu: The Morgue 1997 to 1999: 1-0-9 Discotheque 1999 to 2001: Senor Frog's 2001 to 2001: Vertigo Cocktail Bar and Dance Club 2002 to 2002: Climax Night Club 2002 to 2002: Temptationz 2002 to Present: Globe Tap, Bar & Grill Sources: Edmonton city archives, Edmonton Journal archives Hype & Hawk: Deconstructing Market Forces. Ran with fact box "There's Always new Life in the morgue", which has been appended to this story. © Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal
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