Out and About
Businesses That Deserve Shameless Promotion
Small Town, Big Dreams
(reprinted with permission
from Fab Magazine, 2001)
Couple overcomes adversity to keep
Sudbury's only gay bar running.
"Sudbury is very redneck, a very redneck city," says Gilles Gervais of
his hometown. He should know. For four years now, Gervais and his
partner, JP Pelletier, have owned and operated Zig's, the only gay
establishment in this northeastern Ontario city.
Theirs is not an easy job. Located on the Trans-Canada Highway, 390
kilometres north of Toronto and 483 kilometres west of Ottawa, Sudbury
is far from the bright lights of the big cities. And, in terms of social
attitudes towards gays and lesbians, the gap is even greater.
"I mean we had eggs thrown at [the bar] just last week. It hasn't really
changed," claims Gervais, who, for over 10 years, worked in and managed
Zig's predecessors - "the few we've had." After learning the ropes on
his own and seeing how badly a bar could be run, he decided that he
could do better. "We were saving for a house, which was JP's dream,"
Gervais, 38, recalls. "He put his dream on the backburner." To start up
Zig's (named for Gervais' nickname), Pelletier, 37, left behind not only
a homeowner's dream, but also a career in nursing. Although he spent the
first year of the venture still nursing part-time, the club eventually
demanded Pelleter's full-time attention. He says the sacrifices have
been worthwhile. "I discovered that there are nice people out there,
even in the straight community. There are very nice people out there who
accept people the way they are, which was surprising to me, because
being from Sudbury, I didn't think there were that many people that were
positive."
Of course, not everybody was positive about the idea of Zig's. Sudbury
is a small city, with of a population of less than 200,000, so when
Gervais mentioned his plan to the father of a good friend, the reaction
was predictably negative. "[He] said we'd never survive, [that] there's
only a dozen gay people in Sudbury."
And according to Gervais, this kind of hyperbole isn't always far from
the truth. His own experience has shown that Sudbury can't handle more
than one gay bar at a time. There just aren't enough people who are out.
So, when Gervais and Pelletier opened Zig's, there was definitely an
element of risk, albeit a calculated one. "The owner of the other [gay]
bar was straight and wasn't willing to do anything [for the gay
community]," says Gervais. "He was just 'take the money and run.' I knew
the [gay] community would support me, because I'd worked for the
community for 10 years. They knew [Zig's] was gay-owned."
Zig's was also more out and proud than anything Sudbury had ever seen.
Putting up a sign bearing the rainbow flag outside the bar went beyond
the anonymous hidden entrances that were the norm before. As a result,
the bouncers at Zig's were instructed to tell everyone at the door that
they were entering a gay establishment (a practice that endures today).
Zig's spent close to four years in it's old location before moving to a
new one a few blocks further down the same street. Two months after
opening in its original location, a high-capacity straight bar opened
it's doors across the street. After a couple of years, closing time
became ugly. Patrons from the straight bar hurled beer bottles and
shouted insults across the street. Business at Zig's went down.
Eventually, after Gervais and Pelletier went to the local media with the
story, the straight bar's liquor license was suspended temporarily and
the beer-bottle throwing stopped. The verbal assaults, however, did not.
Faced with a declining customer base and a deteriorating building, the
couple decided to relocate.
"It's a darker entrance, it's not as well lit, so we're getting a lot of
closeted [customers] coming in," explains Gervais. "A lot of people are
still afraid of coming out. And I don't think it's any easier than four
or five years ago. We have gay pride parades, but they're not very
large. They don't have a very huge impact."
Gervais thinks that the biggest challenge for Sudbury queers is the lack
of safe spaces. "The only place you can be [openly] gay in Sudbury is at
the bar. There is absolutely nothing else. I'm not saying that you won't
be served at a restaurant as a gay couple, but I'll guarantee you that
two gay men cannot walk a downtown street hand-in-hand. They will be
called names and whatnot."
"I don't think Sudbury would ever be able to support a gay café or gay
restaurant, because the numbers just aren't there and the people aren't
willing to come 'out', completely 'out', during the day," he continues.
"A bar's a different story. It's night, a little bit of alcohol loosens
them up a little bit and they feel a little better. But I don't think
Sudbury would ever be able to support a gay business."
This rather bleak assessment of the state of the city's gay community
may also explain what could be termed the 'gay drain' to larger cities
like Toronto and Ottawa. "There's a constant flow of people moving to
Toronto or Ottawa, mostly to Toronto," Gervais notes. "They go out to
Toronto, they learn to be proud about themselves and they learn that
there's tolerance towards gay people and they come back, only if there's
tolerance or understanding on their families' side. If there's none,
they don't come back."
For Gervais and Pelletier, their families are part of what keeps them in
Sudbury. Zig's is another.
"The bar will never make us rich. We make a living, but not a killing.
But that was the whole plan," says Gervais. "We basically took a chance
on seeing if we could pull people out of the closet a bit, and we've
succeeded in that."
Reprinted with permission
-Leon Mar for Fab magazine
Aug. 30 - Sept. 12, 2001
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Words to help the directories find this
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Zig's Bar, Sudbury Ontario
Gay Marriage in Ontario
Gay Bars, Ontario
Gay Pride in Ontario
Gay, Bisexual, and Straight Bars
Being Gay in Ontario
Where to go in Sudbury Ontario
Bars in Sudbury Ontario
Nightlife in Sudbury Ontario
Drag Queen Competition
Costume Party
Karaoke Night in Sudbury Ontario
