The Dip is going upscale. Again. It happened once before, a long time ago. The scale upon which it moved up was very relative. I’m sure I’m not the only person in town who remembers when it was the Ambassador. That was the sort of watering hole that made run-of-the-mill dives look classy.
When the Ambassador morphed into the Diplomat, people marvelled at the improvement. That was back when downtown rowdiness didn’t make the front page news. It was there, though. In those days, a pub crawl along Macdonell Street could start at the Albion, then go half a block east to stop in for country music at the Regent.
Across the street on the corner of Wyndham was the King Eddie. Sometimes rock and roll bands, sometimes young ladies taking their clothes off.
Then back over the road and a bit east of Wyndham into the Ambassador. The draft glasses weren’t large, but they were cheap. And there was always a salt shaker on every table to take the fizz out of the beer. Listen to some mournful hurting country songs for a while, then dash across to the Chooch, a rousing rock and roll bar in the Royal Hotel.
Acts like Kim Mitchell and David Wilcox and others regularly played downtown.
There were more places to drink on campus than downtown in those days, so that’s where most students stayed. Then one drunk himself to death and most campus bars were shut down. That’s when uptown came downtown to play.
The difference in rowdiness today is in numbers. There’re more people misbehaving, but the behaviour itself is the same. There was a time when the list of patrons banned from the Ambassador was longer than the list of people allowed in. Or so it seemed. Then it cleaned up and re-rebranded itself as the Diplomat.
That period of Macdonell Street is part of the cultural heritage of Guelph. Not very high culture, but part of our fabric all the same. It’s not a heritage a lot of people want to preserve.
There are people in Guelph who would rather set their hair on fire and put it out with a hammer than drop into the Diplomat for a glass of beer. They didn’t go when it was open, and still won’t when it’s a fancy hotel.
Some of those who buy into the most beautiful condo tower in southern Ontario will book a boutique room for the in-laws when they come to town. It will sell out during Hillside and the Jazz Festival. There is culture and Culture, heritage and Heritage. We celebrate some, tolerate some, and eliminate some.
I firmly and fervently believe in the revitalization of our downtown, and I am just as anxious as anyone to get a grip on the “party town” atmosphere.
Any one of today’s big box bars has more capacity than all the old downtown hotels combined. We have to recognize that revitalizing means gentrifying. There will be consequences and we should face up to them. A small and not very powerful group of people who frequent some downtown establishments are being squeegied off the windshield.
They have to go somewhere, and they will. They are the collateral damage in the battle to make our city core into a livable, walkable, vibrant community. If we don’t want them downtown, where do we?
Perhaps an enterprising developer will open up Toothless Joe’s Ladies and Escorts Lounge somewhere on Clair Road. All the old diplomats could gather there and, over a jug of Labatt’s 50, recall a past no one wants to remember.