Winnipeg Nightlife

-

-

For those to have yet to hear, Monty’s Bar One has recently been re-branded into Lipstixx Exotic Nightclub by one of Winnipeg’s most powerful nightlife influences, Sabino Tummilo. Tummilo is the current owner of Solid Gold (a downtown Winnipeg strip club), the former owner of downtown nightclub “The Empire” (the former Whiskey Dix which closed after a well publicized string of violence) as well as currently having silent ownership interests in several other Winnipeg nightclubs, business’s and real estate.

-

Over the years, Monty’s Bar One has been a dynamic bar catering to many different groups of people. The bar has featured everything from strippers (evening, lunch and even the infamous “amateur nights”), dollar drafts, VLT’S and poker as well as hosted dance/DJ/club events. Many people also may not realize that Monty’s was home to Winnipeg’s Goth/Industrial scene by hosting their weekly “Cryptic Chaos” night. On any given night you could find people of all ages at Monty’s thanks to it’s close proximity to the University of Manitoba and a loyal, older crowd.

-

Many local residents have protested the opening of Lipstixx stating that changing Monty’s into strictly a strip club stating that it will attract violence, drugs and gangs to their neighborhood. Tummilo (who is no stranger to the press after the publicity surrounding The Empire) addresses these concerns in the below articles stating that since Monty’s has featured strippers for years, there is no difference now.

-

Comment Below! (NO SIGN UP REQUIRED)

Do you think strip clubs attract more violence, drugs and gangs then normal bars? Do you think Lipstixx will be a successful rebranding? Did you used to frequent Monty’s? Would you want a strip club opening in your neighborhood?

-

Club too exotic? Waverley Heights residents oppose opening of strip bar (Original Winnipeg Sun Article)

Area residents have laid bare their opposition to plans for Monty’s nightclub to go the full monty.

-

Monty’s Bar One, located in the Montcalm Hotel on Pembina Highway at Markham Road, has been re-branded as Lipstixx Exotic Nightclub. It was open for business on Thursday.

-

Waverley Heights resident Sarah Rosnes has started an online petition with the hope of sparking the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission to review the beverage room’s licence and keep the full-on strip club from opening.

-

“South Winnipeg is a desirable family neighborhood and we want to keep it that way,” said Rosnes. “With a strip club coming into the neighborhood, it brings a lot of unwanted things.”

-

She said she fears the strip club will attract gang members, drug dealers and threaten the safety of pedestrians.

-

Rosnes said she hopes concerned area residents will be granted a meeting with MLCC officials to discuss the beverage room’s licence. The petition had more than 100 supporters by Thursday afternoon.

-

Beverage rooms that are already licensed need no new MLCC permits or authorization to put on strip shows. Monty’s has hosted exotic entertainment for years and strippers last walked its stage in October.

-

“The bar used to have dancers for 25 years,” said Sabino Tummillo, who is managing the new strip bar with his brother Rob. “There’s no difference now.”

-

The Tummillos also run the downtown strip club Solid Gold on Notre Dame Avenue.

-

Sabino Tummillo formerly owned The Empire nightclub on Main Street. He voluntarily gave up its liquor licence — avoiding a public hearing into the club’s operations by the MLCC — and sold the bar in January 2008 after 24-year-old Jeff Engen was stabbed to death the previous November during a fight in a basement lounge.

-

Winston Yee, director of licensing and inspection with the MLCC, said the booze regulator has interviewed community members with concerns about Lipstixx and could review the licence if there is a large public outcry.

-

“It’s weighing the impact to the community,” Yee said.

-

“You’re balancing that with a licensee’s rights and privileges as authorized under legislation as well.”

-

-

Just being ‘exotic’ isn’t enough to force business out (Original Winnipeg Sun Article)

Like most homeowners, I wouldn’t consider having a strip club next door to my home a bonus.

-

For similar reasons, I also wouldn’t seek out a home too close to a rowdy nightclub of any kind.

-

Exotic dancers and rowdy drunks don’t exactly provide a sense of “home, sweet home” to most people.

-

Yet the outrage of one group of Winnipeggers fighting to shut down a new strip club in the exact spot of a previous bar is puzzling.

-

Lipstixx Exotic Nightclub has opened where Monty’s Bar One stood in the Montcalm Hotel for decades.

-

Perhaps some neighbours of the Pembina Highway nightclub didn’t realize the bar itself had several well-promoted exotic dancing nights and regular noon-hour nudity. In fact, strippers have been featured as entertainment at the site for 25 years.

-

Strippers

-

These critics argue an exotic nightclub would attract a new segment of society to the neighbourhood, which seems a needless worry since such patrons would already visit the club.

-

Strippers have performed at Monty’s over the lunch hour for at least two decades.

-

Yet Winnipeg mom Sarah Rosnes said she was shocked that Waverley Heights community members weren’t warned about plans for Monty’s to be replaced by Lipstixx.

-

The new club made strippers a much more prominent part of the attraction when it opened on May 13 but the fight to push the business out of the area has just begun.

-

Rosnes has started an online petition that aims to close the club by forcing a review of its liquor licence.

-

The Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) says it could place certain conditions on the nightclub if enough residents oppose it.

-

By Friday night, Rosnes’s petition had attracted 203 signatures.

-

Rosnes claims a strip club could also attract gang members and drug dealers to the area.

-

Yet violence is always a risk anywhere alcohol is served, so it’s not clear that adding partial nudity to the equation would attract much worse of a clientele.

-

Gang members and drug dealers have also been known to get into trouble in bars of all kinds.

-

Baseless accusations

-

Other accusations about the club are simply baseless. An ad listing a link to the petition on Kijiji, for example, claims the club violates a city bylaw, even though the city has explained it doesn’t.

-

The city does require new businesses featuring adult entertainment to be placed at least 1,000 feet away from homes but this bylaw doesn’t apply to existing licensed establishments. That’s probably because a neighbourhood isn’t likely to change much when a new business offers the exact same services as the one it is replacing.

-

Rosnes also claims the club would wreak havoc with pedestrian traffic, without explaining why strip club patrons are far more dangerous drivers than those attending regular bars.

-

It wouldn’t be fair for the MLCC to bully a business that has yet to do anything wrong, just because its neighbours are assuming the worst.

-

If Lipstixx wreaks havoc by breaking liquor laws, than this review would be in order.

-

But to force it out of business simply because of its “exotic” nature isn’t reasonable. In Winnipeg, nightclubs are often forced to shut down after extreme violent episodes, whether they offer any form of nudity to their patrons or not.

-

The blend of alcohol, a party atmosphere and a few misguided patrons are all it takes for things to get out of hand.

-

The level of dress of the staff inside may not make much difference.

-