Ottawa's gay bars suffer dry spell

I have a piece in the current issue of Capital Xtra, which is the full story following the brief that was posted online January 6th. There will be another piece rising out of this story in the next issue (in three weeks' time), so keep your eye out for that.

There was one interesting bit that was cut from the piece, however, which was a point of disagreement between one of the bar owners and the account on file at the AGCO office.

“There was an issue there of overcrowding,” says Lisa Murray, spokesperson for the Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario, says of CP’s suspension. “In this case, it’s the higher level of an old converted house, and the stairwells weren’t marked as emergency exits and there were some issues with that.”

Bruce Davis, CP’s manager confirms that overcrowding was an issue, saying the incident took place last January, but denies there being an issue with marked exits. 

“There is no issue with that,” Davis says.

Suffice to say, I think there may be a few more bar stories in the future, but they'll be on some of the larger issues with the AGCO.