Exclusive: Midtown celebrates demise of abandoned strip club
Posted March 20, 2011 9:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Sure, it’s trading one sin for another, but many midtown residents and businesses are celebrating the demise of an abandoned strip club in their area.
Next week, the LCBO will open a new store at 2087 Yonge St. at Manor Road, the former site of Cheaters, a “gentlemen’s club” known as Mystique Lounge when it closed its giant black doors in 2008.
“I’m totally ecstatic about it because finally we will be getting a good level of clients around the area here,” said Frank Creatura, owner of Testa Uomo, a menswear store next door.
“Many mornings I would get to work and there would be vomit, and there would be broken beer bottles – and blood sometimes ‘cause they’d had fights the night before – and all sorts of other debris.”
Nearby residents also complained about taxis parking on their streets, but the issue worked itself out.
Despite targeting upscale customers and holding well-attended ladies’ nights, the club’s popularity waned. A business owner who sold music supplies to Mystique’s DJ saw the men dancing one night before the place shut down.
“I went in there once ‘cause the DJ said, ‘There’s something wrong with my system. Come in and fix it for me,’” said Ed Stone of Executive Stereo. “It was packed! It was solid. It was unbelievable!
“The owners [later] said they were still continuing on with the male nights but it wasn’t paying the bills. So I think they did a midnight shuffle. They kind of split out of there. There wasn’t enough demand in this neighbourhood I guess.”
An LCBO spokesman said the company is moving into the former strip club because the lease at its Yonge and Millwood Road store will soon run out.
The liquor seller has signed on a for a five-year lease in the new spot while it searches for a larger location with more parking.
Creatura thinks anything is better than having a strip club there.
“[There are] lots of children walking by here,” he said. “This is a neighbourhood. It’s not an industrial area, which is where these places should be. It has changed hands for the better, definitely.”
