Music lovers urge City Hall to pick Sneaky Dee’s over condos
· Toronto Sun
There was no live music, cheap beer or nachos, but Sneaky Dee’s still drew a big crowd midday Thursday at Toronto City Hall.
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A long list of people signed up to advocate for the bar and music venue, fearful for its future because of zoning and planning changes being considered by the Toronto-East York community council.
As well, the council received well over 200 emails about the application, which would allow a 16-storey condo tower at the corner of College and Bathurst Sts., where the bar has been for decades.
Council chairman Chris Moise warned in advance that no decision would be made until at least July, and told those present it was “probably in your best interest to wait until then” to speak.
More than a dozen people chose to speak at Thursday’s meeting anyway.
Councillors repeatedly heard that Sneaky Dee’s patrons are fed up with what they see as the gradual loss of Toronto’s culture and identity. They expressed frustration that a place where they can afford a cheap night out with dinner and drinks might be replaced by condos far beyond their price range.
One of the speakers, Sadie Stranks, compared the potential loss of Sneaky Dee’s to another Toronto landmark no longer in the neighbourhood, Honest Ed’s.
“I feel that Sneaky Dee’s is more of a home than any apartment you could possibly build,” she said.
Won’t get fooled again: Saxe
One deputant, Tom Cai, lamented the steady erosion of nightlife that caters to students at Toronto’s universities. Alejandra Bravo told Cai that in her day, she attended Sneaky Dee’s so often “that I was invited to the staff party.”
Bravo, the councillor for Davenport ward, then appeared to call for a battle over the development proposal – to be fought by someone else.
She said she was “fighting for that corner when white nationalists, Nazi skinheads were trying to take it. We were all there holding our ground. But, on the other hand,” she asked Cai, “are you aware that we do not, at this level of government, set the planning rules?”
“I think that part of the challenge here,” Bravo went on to say, “is that it’s important to understand that the provincial government sets the legislation. We have very limited tools in what we can do.”
She then told Cai that Montreal enjoys a closer relationship with its provincial legislature. “This provincial government sucks,” Bravo said, drawing laughter from Moise.
“We definitely need organized young people to push back,” she added. “The only way that anything has ever changed in this country, from, like, health care to pensions, has been with people taking it. It was never given to us.”
Amid all the critical voices was a representative for the developer, Goldberg Group, who insisted Sneaky Dee’s would still have a place at College and Bathurst even if a condo is built.
Clay Janzen, a planner with Goldberg, said the developer has a good relationship with the bar’s ownership. She said Sneaky Dee’s could stay until construction begins, would get a temporary home somewhere nearby, and Goldberg would “welcome them back as tenants in the new development.”
The Toronto Sun has been unable to get the ownership of Sneaky Dee’s to comment. Councillor Dianne Saxe said the council’s decision was being put off until July because she couldn’t get in touch with the owner either.
While she’s heard assurances from the Goldberg Group, “I’ve had developers try to fool me before,” she said.
Sneaky Dee’s at College and Bathurst Sts. on Monday September 7, 2020.
‘Sea of highrises’
While some expressed doubt about a future for Sneaky Dee’s in a condo, the development is slated to include two retail spaces and room for “one music venue.”
It’s also undeniable that a condo tower would give more people a place to live.
Janzen said there are just two apartments with tenants in the College St. properties covered by the application. The proposed development would feature 203 units, mostly one-bedrooms.
That trade-off didn’t make sense to Nate Palmer, who asked the community council why a “thriving business” could be sacrificed when so many condos in the city sit empty and unsold.
“The last thing Toronto needs is to remove more historic landmarks in order to make way for expensive construction projects that do nothing for the people that live here and serve only to enrich wealthy developers who don’t care about the city,” Palmer said.
While the speakers were a relatively young group for city hall, not everyone was college age. Becky Robinson said she’s in her mid-30s but still goes to Sneaky Dee’s for yoga.
“Without places like it, we are just going to become a sea of highrises full of people who have nowhere to actually go,” she warned.
Sneaky Dee’s website says the bar has been around since 1987. It was immortalized as a Toronto hipster institution with its first appearance in the Scott Pilgrim comic books in 2007.
Plans to redevelop the site have been in the works since 2020.