JR-Mtl

As a long-time Montreal afficionado, I've been enjoying your posts, @@SirBIllybob and @@JR-Mtl. I'm wondering if either of you can shed light on the curtains/no-curtains drama at Campus. I'm sure you'll recall that (all too brief) interlude when Campus had curtain-closed lap dance booths. I have inquiried (from dancers, from Gary, from other staff) why the curtains were taken down, but never heard an answer that made any sense -- especially since Stock's curtains remained. Any insights?

The honest answer is that it comes down to management balancing risk. Police being concerned could effect their liquor licence. What can they get away with; or what will provoke the police to intervene. Nothing makes a dance with curtains or without more or less legal.

Yes, it is confusing, isn’t it?

 

Ordinarily open (or non-) curtain suggests less contact and $10 ... I believe Stock has a sign delineating the distinction.

 

I have always assumed all songs are $20 at Campus and not bothered to request a lesser rate, because I want “$20 action”. Perhaps the absence of a curtain supports the notion that all songs are the higher rate, therefore more lucrative for dancers.

 

Perhaps Stock is taking more of risk, or open versus closed there cues a clearer boundary between 2 versions of contact. It may simply be club preference, or a little of “something for everyone” on the strip.

 

I believe the official boiler-plate explanation is that the open concept is less incriminating and closer to the table-dance concept. Protection of all parties. Also, a foreign presence such as morality squad can be noticed more easily and warn that adjustments in cubicle choreography are required.

 

Where some charges have been laid in Canada, the law enforcers have yanked open the curtain so the element of surprise prevents behaviour alteration.

 

I note, though, that open concept at Campus is partially visible but at a distance, so it may encourage curiosity and retail.

The first part is really simple. If you're paying for a dance, it's illegal. The second part, are the Montreal police going to charge. The answer is, not in the last 10 years while it's been illegal. You don't have to touch; if you paid to get aroused, by the definition set by the Court of Appeal, it's prostitution.

When Campus first started you could have a table dance, or go in the back. Based on the current definition, both would be prostitution.

And need I repeat, the decision of the Court of Appeal was in 2010, and it hasn't been applied since.

I won’t quote your passage, Jr-Mtl, but I appreciate the additions. I am not a lawyer or expert, but I agree with much of how you see it, some of it may be either one of us splitting hairs on wording and meanings, and we are both missing key parts of the history and the nuances pre- and post- Nordic model application 2014.

 

I avoided the distinction between indecency standards and indictability for simplicity sake.

 

I was trying to focus mainly on vice/morals law and deliberately skirted labour and licensing, but you are correct in that they are relevant.

 

Prostitution law here was and is quirky and probably poorly understand by our American cousins. It came down much to communicating for purposes of prostitution (in my books that is enough to have defined it as illegal prior to 2014), and now is protect-provider -- indict John — neo-abolitionism.

 

I don’t know much about the bawdy-house found-in ... seems specific to the setting without concrete evidence of negotiating a trick, the key illegality up to 2014.

 

 

 

I did start by saying I liked your posts.

 

I'm a retired lawyer. I worked on these types of issues with the "late" Gay Line as an adviser.

 

What was illegal was based on it being indecent or prostitution. An earlier court case (2010) said lap dances weren't indecent, a later one said they were prostitution (2010). A bawdy-house is a whore house. The issue is if you're present while illegal activities are taking place you're a found in. And I can't see any way the bar owners could distance themselves from the same charges.

 

In the Bar Lavalois case 10 dancers were charged, and the doorman. Any client could equally have been charged.

 

My bottom line: dancers are employees, and if the police wanted to prosecute, the bars are living off the avails, or are bawdy-houses.

——-

 

I think that there are a lot of factors at play, not the least of which is perspective.

 

 

You wrote in an earlier post:

 

“The clubs can hire and pay strippers a wage for stage entertainment, in the same way they employ servers, DJs, etc, but it is a criminal offense for the club to have those same strippers provide private lap dances. The club can only profit from bev service if all employees refrain from activities that legally impugn the club and consumers.... it is illegal to purchase lap dances, but legal for independent contractor lap dancers to sell them, as long as the club does not profit.”

 

I think your enjoyable posts are mixing up 3 areas of law: labour law, liquor licensing, and the criminal code.

 

The argument you repeated, used by the bar owners, that contractual distance is necessary to protect them simply doesn’t hold up. I seem to have beat you in visits to Appolon. I was there when it was still on Guy Street before it moved to Crescent, close to The Limelight. That was 40 years ago; and, they didn’t pay the dancers then. The dancers paid the bar to dance. It’s profitable for the bar owners, and there is no legal defence. Swinging Richards recently lost its case with 5 dancers trying to use “I’m a contractor not an employer argument.” Uber is going with “I’m a platform not an employer”, and they’re going to loose as well.

 

In each of the three areas of law, you have to consider the law, and then the local decisions about the application of the law - like jay-walking, illegal in Toronto and Montreal, but…

 

In Quebec, it’s illegal to discriminate based on gender. Campus, Stock and Taboo have “ladies night”. All of them are breaking the law. They can not exclude women at any time. But it takes someone who cares enough to make a complaint to the Rights Commission. Someone who is willing to wait a minimum of two to three years for a first level decision.

 

The bar owners are worried about their liquor licences. Too many bikers (criminal activity), or indecent behaviour, and the licence can be pulled, or suspended. Taboo lost its licence when a dancer was found to be under 18.

 

In the earlier days, the regulations were much tougher. When Campus opened, it was forbidden for dancers to sit with a client, or to spend too much time with any client. The regs were written with women’s bars in minds. Seems they could trick their clients into buying too much over-priced champagne. At Campus, the dancers did not circulate, they stood waiting beside a jukebox until they were approached.

 

And then to this odd mix, we throw in the Criminal Code. Lap dances did not become legal in 2000. They ceased to be defined as “indecent”. If memory serves, the case involved a service where the window opened and a woman masturbated owned by a former police officer. The court found that it didn’t meet the community’s definition of indecent. The definitions of indecent and prostitution are not included in the Criminal Code.

 

Almost by accident, lap dances became criminal in 2010. Absolutely no contact required. Again a women’s strip bar, the Bar Lavalois.

 

The women, and doorman, had been arrested as found-ins in a bawdy house (no surprise no clear definition other than a place where prostitution or indecent acts occur on a regular basis). Why by accident? For the first time, the police didn’t charge them with indecent behaviour, they went for prostitution. It was a municipal court. They won; the reviewing court agreed. It headed for the Quebec Court of Appeal. Mr Justice Hilton used the common law definition of prostitution as sexual gratification for consideration.

 

So at this point, lap dances are prostitution. You’re paying to get excited. No touching required.

 

In 2014, the Harper government re-wrote the criminal code articles on prostitution which had never been illegal in Canada. There were things attached to it that were, don’t block the traffic (street work), don’t make a living off someone else’s work (pimp), bawdy-house, etc

 

His government made it illegal to buy sex, but not to sell it. So anyone who buys a lap dance faces criminal charges.

 

The law has been challenged.

 

Being real, this has been the case since 2014, and not one raid.

Here are some helpful tips for dealing with Trolls:

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• Don't Teach a Troll...They are very set in their ways, They get very angry very fast. When they get angry they play. See previous rule.
   
   
  
• Don't Argue with a Troll...They are very set in their ways, They get very angry very fast. When they get angry they play. See previous rule.
  

I know you're right. But every now and then someone should remind us he's a troll.

Good Lord! It's 3 short blocks from Stock. That's like a 30 second walk. You need to take off your rose-colored glasses when it comes to Le Village. It's at the doorstep of your fave hotel Le Gouverneur for it's proximity to the strip clubs. Please get your facts straight and stop sugar-coating information, and stop being a Pollyanna when it comes to anything Montreal.

"A thirty second walk".

You're clearly in better shape than I am. The distance from Stock to the Square is 7 blocks; or, to be precise a quarter of a mile (I used MapMyRun). It takes me, at a brisk walk, from 5 to 10 minutes (depending on the number of gin & tonics).

But you had to have known that the "thirty seconds" "one-block", etc.comments were absurd.

I don't understand why you like picking fights and looking boorish.

Thanks!

 

I think the hospital I saw on the 747Aeroport bus (from downtown Montreal to YUL) is called the "MEGA" Hospital?

 

It seemed far away from Ste Catherine/ste Denis.

Both University health centres/hospitals are Mega hospitals. CHUM on the corner of Rene Levesque and St Denis, and MUHC in the Glen just west of Westmount.

The hospital E.R. I went to was located on Ste Catherine and St Denis. It would be interesting to know if there is better quality service at the University Hospital?

 

On other fronts, I always see that huge hospital while taking the 747 Aeroport bus back to YUL.

That hospital is way outside of the city centre.

The hospital you went to was St. Luc. The newest university hospital is located where St. Luc used to be. Montreal now has two university hospitals or health centres.

The University of Montreal Health Centre (CHUM) is at Ste Catherine and St Denis.

https://www.chumontreal.qc.ca

Those five or six black towers shown on their home page are all part of the centre.

The one you see flying into Montreal is the McGill University Health Centre which is further from downtown towards the west.

https://muhc.ca