Riley Brandt

The city says the Republik nightclub on 17th Avenue S.W. didn't have a valid business licence.

The wrinkled sign taped to the glass door of the Republik nightclub on 17th Avenue S.W. is a downer for local music fans: “Due to structural issues with the roof republic (sic) will not be open this weekend. Sorry for any inconvenience. Please check ffwd for updates.”

Turns out it’s been a very long weekend. The glow of the ATM is still visible through the historic brick building’s dirty windows, but the club is empty of people. The sign’s been posted on the door since April 2008, when the club closed its doors after a brief return to the city’s live music scene — and the closure isn’t because of the roof, according to the city. “They didn’t have a valid [business] licence,” says Kent Pallister, the city’s chief licence inspector.

As well, the city says renovations to the space caused a problem. “It didn’t comply with the previously issued development permits,” says Matthias Tita, manager of city centre planning. “Basically they had created — with additional openings, doorways, stuff like that — one large establishment that did not have planning approval.” The city’s land use bylaw, he says, only allows for a smaller establishment at that site because it’s close to residential buildings.

Throughout the late ’80s and ’90s, the original Republik was a mainstay of the city’s alternative music scene. Wilco, Hole and Our Lady Peace are just a few bands that played at the gritty venue in its heyday, and after nightclub entrepreneur Victor Choy closed the popular club in 2000, people kept asking him to reopen it.

In December 2007, he did just that, moving into the old Victoria’s Restaurant building on 17th Avenue near 2nd Street S.W. — a former milk processing plant — and introducing an indie dance room called Stylofone. Business boomed at the new Republik for about four months, until the doors were locked.

Fast Forward Weekly has been trying to interview Republik owner Victor Choy — the man behind successful city clubs like The Mercury, Flames Central and Local 510 — about the situation for months, leaving him numerous voice mails. In late August he agreed to an interview, postponed it and, at the meeting several days later, ultimately declined to be interviewed. In a prepared statement, he said he’s working with the city to come up with a resolution. “We’re addressing the issues at hand. It’s a sensitive issue at this point and we will be unable to make further comment in the near future.”

Tita says there’s a “theoretical way” Choy could get the current layout approved, but it would require new permits and a land-use amendment that city council would ultimately need to approve. “It’s a pretty long process and it doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful in the end,” says Tita. Another option, he says, is for the building’s interior to be reverted “back to what is approved under previous development permits.”

In addition to the Republik, the building also houses Goliaths and the Texas Lounge, a gay bathhouse and bar.

Larry Ryder of Louson Investments, the building’s owner, says Choy continues to be a tenant. Asked if Choy has been paying rent for the empty space, Ryder says, “That’s between him and I, but he has a lease with us and he’s honouring his lease.”

A former tenant of the building says he paid around $22,000 a month in rent. “It wasn’t cheap,” says Rudy Labuhn, who owned the gay bar Detour until it closed about five years ago.

Labuhn notes that the building is full of “rich Calgary history.” Built in 1934, it originally housed farmer-rancher James C. Colpitts’s Model Milk Company, which went on to become the largest producing dairy in the province in the ’60s. A milk bar in the building sold milkshakes and five-cent ice cream cones. “It was there when I was a kid and we used to buy ice cream [there],” recalls Labuhn. The “Model Milk” name is still inscribed on the building’s facade beneath carvings of milk bottles.

Several years ago Ryder had planned to build a 25-storey condo on the site that integrated the historic facade into the project, but he says those plans haven’t gone anywhere because of Calgary’s excessive real estate situation. “There are too many condos right now,” he says. “We haven’t pursued anything for redevelopment at this present moment.”

The Model Milk building is currently on the city’s inventory list of historic sites. “It merits preservation, but it’s not legally protected at this point,” says city heritage planner Darryl Cariou. A historic designation would restrict changes to the building but requires the owner’s co-operation — a possibility Ryder rules out. “It’ll never be designated because we don’t want it to be designated,” he says, adding that the building’s interior has already changed so much that it doesn’t resemble its original use.

However, Ryder says he recognizes the historic value of the building and will preserve that value in any new development on the site. “When we decide to do it, all the original bricks and that kind of stuff will be used in the new building.”