Saved for the belles

Queers, fetish and low-end strip club fans thrilled that famed dive Café Cleopatra won’t be facing the wrecking ball

by ELISABETH FAURE

March 17, 2011

THERE’S NO DIVE LIKE HOME: Eric Paradis

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Photo by RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Heritage types and opponents of mega-culture aren’t the only people celebrating news that Café Cleopatra, the legendary lower-Main sleaze-hole, has been saved from extinction. Peelers, drag queens and burlesquers are also rejoicing.

“This is a righteous outcome,” says Eric Paradis, who produces the Montreal Fetish Weekend and Club Sin fetish nights at Cleo’s. “It will mean a great deal for the future of this city.”

A 29-year showbiz veteran, Paradis was about to hang up his fetish hat when he met Cleopatra owner Johnny Zoumboulakis years ago. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m gonna go for this, because this guy is unlike any club owner I’ve ever met.’ I learned a lot from this person, and one of the most important things I learned was that when you’re an artist, you need a home base.”

Paradis is one of many Montreal acts that faced a loss of performance space when the city threatened to expropriate Cleopatra as part of a redevelopment plan for the Quartier des spectacles. The plan would have allowed developer Christian Yaccarini, of Angus Development Corp., to demolish the three-storey strip joint/showbar and put up office buildings.

Zoumboulakis, who perhaps ambitiously calls Cleopatra “the Queen of the Main,” didn’t take the threat to his beloved bar lying down.

“The city came to me and said they had no place for me in the ‘new and revitalized’ Main, which I think is unfair,” he explains. He took the city to court in November 2009, one month after the expropriation order was filed. A bitter battle with City Hall ensued.

The artistic community joined the fight, in a colourful campaign. Tactics ranged from middle-aged women visiting City Hall dressed as strippers to an ill-fated attempt to convince Prince Charles to join the crusade during his 2010 tour. “My artists were very orderly… they never threw anything at Prince Charles,” Zoumboulakis says.

The underdogs emerged victorious. Angus says it will no longer fund the project, leading City Hall to cancel the expropriation order. Future Quartier developments will have to live with Café Cleo.

Paradis says Cleopatra holds an important place in Montreal’s cultural landscape. “[Cleo’s] is our place…. Johnny has given hundreds of artists, directly or indirectly, a source of pride in being part of an institution.”

Cleo has deep roots within the gay community. “It was the first place to employ transvestites and transsexuals,” says Zoumboulakis. “Back then, gay was not very accepted. Cleopatra was where everyone felt secure, safe and equal.” Cleopatra’s second floor continues to host drag and fetish shows, drawing visitors from around the world.

Zoumboulakis defends Cleo’s ground-floor strip club (where, if online user reviews are to be believed, your $10 will go far). “[The women] are dancers,” he says simply.

Paradis acknowledges that people have issues with the strip club, but says, “the dancers have a legal right to be there,” adding, “It has its imperfections, but it’s something that’s part of the charm.”

With Cleopatra safe, Paradis hopes politicians re-think the Quartier, to preserve more of the area’s character. “The Main has a very special meaning for us, and throughout the world’—it’s like Bourbon Street, it’s like Soho.”

Paradis adds he doesn’t think much of the city’s current plans (“Who wants to fucking see another big installation?”) and urges politicians to appreciate the Main’s historic value. “They need to realize the treasure they have.” ■