Club 477, a popular spot for gay men that decade, became repeatedly subject to heckling and hate-based assaults given its central location on Princess St., Bilow said. opened shop in the early 1990s, but dwindling interest took its toll. and Club 477, located at 477 Princess St. Two gay bars - Wally’s near the Greek Islands on Bath Rd. “You can’t think you can have a lesbian and a gay man enjoying the same thing. Members boycotted certain events to avoid people, later boycotting establishments altogether - a petty social exchange that betrayed the concept of a unified, gay community founded on ideals of acceptance and liberation. General mismanagement, coupled with a growing dissidence between gay groups and lesbian groups and their own cliques within, led to a growing dissatisfaction with Kingston’s gay scene, he added. Since then, multiple attempts to establish a regular hangout for the seemingly sexually alienated have fallen short: more publicly housed gay bars became repeated sites of gay-bashings and erratic ownership that eventually wrought financial misfortune, Bilow recalled. The Office rebranded as The Backdoor in late 1988, but closed down its operations the following year. As time has revealed, he added, Kingston lacks both. “You can go to Stages Nightclub or the Grizzly Grill or you can go to Ale House.”Īny form of consistent LGBTQ-oriented club or bar needs to have two things, he said: a committed owner and a committed community. “ you can dance anywhere in this town as a gay man, really,” Bilow, 61, said. More specifically, according to Bilow, people don’t know if reviving an LGBTQ bar scene is even worth it. The result is an overwhelming lack of support for LGBTQ-related activities and events. Keith Bilow, who has been involved in Kingston’s LGBTQ scene since the early 1970s, said Kingston’s small-town atmosphere, coupled with a growing culture of acceptance toward alternative sexual lifestyles, has contributed to a divisive and apathetic LGBTQ community. Greater tolerance of gay culture, they argue, has dissolved solidarity in Kingston’s LGBTQ community, as they branch out and lose touch with the difficult reality of having once been a targeted minority. Nearly 30 years later, with changing attitudes towards the LGBTQ community, it’s up in the air whether the safe haven of a gay bar should remain, according to some members.
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The club, referred to as The Office, had its identity discretely tucked away behind The Plaza’s heterosexual façade: people came and went on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, mingled with others of similar sexual persuasion and were left unquestioned by staff and passersby. Throughout the late 1980s, an upper section of The Plaza, a bar near Princess and Montreal Streets that’s now a strip club, catered to Kingston’s LGBTQ population - then considered a taboo subsection of an otherwise conservative society. Since then, LGBTQ community members are unsure if they even want one at all. Around four years ago, Kingston’s last gay bar - Shay Foo Foo’s - shut its doors for good.