Why can’t Montreal have a nightlife mayor? (Even Ottawa has one)

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Promoting the city’s nightlife culture should be a top priority for Valérie Plante’s administration. So why isn’t Plante doing more to make our town the ultimate nightlife destination?

Astonishingly enough, Ottawa — the city that fun forgot — is ahead of Montreal when it comes to developing a dynamic nightlife policy for the city. The nation’s sleepy capital recently named a nightlife commissioner and to add insult to injury for those of us in the 514, they picked a Montrealer for the job.

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The guy people in Ottawa are already calling the “nightlife mayor” is Mathieu Grondin, the former head of the Montreal nightlife lobby group MTL 24/24 and unquestionably the fellow who has pushed harder ici than anyone else to persuade Plante and her cronies to do more for nightlife. In fact, he may well have pushed too hard, which is partly why he’s now working for the city of Ottawa.

Last year, he blasted the Plante administration in these pages for dragging its feet, noting that Plante had promised in the 2017 election campaign that she would deliver a new nightlife policy.

“The city of Montreal loves red tape,” Grondin said at the time.

The folks in Plante’s office were not amused by his comments, he said. Several months later, the city cut funding to MTL 24/24. All of a sudden, Grondin was without a job. That’s when Ottawa came calling and the result is Montreal’s leading nightlife activist is now pushing that agenda in Ottawa.

MTL 24/24 had a three-year deal with Montreal and the provincial government, receiving $200,000 annually from the city and $250,000 from Quebec. Quebec is willing to fund the group again — which is no longer run by Grondin — but only if Montreal also finances it. And Montreal has not agreed to give it money this year.

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“It’s Ottawa that’s on the avant-garde right now in terms of nightlife governance,” Grondin said in a phone interview this week. “It’s the first city in Canada to name a nightlife commissioner, it’s the first city to adopt an action plan. It’s an incredible opportunity. The people from the Ottawa city administration came to the MTL au sommet de la nuit two years ago.” The conference was run by MTL 24/24.

“They listened. They did their homework. They came back the next year with an action plan and it was voted in by their city council,” Grondin said.

Meanwhile, the players in the cultural scene here are still waiting for the policy to be unveiled, seven years after Plante first promised it.

A spokesperson for the city said Plante’s nightlife policy will be unveiled by the end of the summer, but the details have yet to be announced. One of the main focuses has been pilot projects allowing venues to sell alcoholic drinks beyond 3 a.m., an initiative that hardly seems to be a top priority for the players in the milieu. It also promises to do something about the issue of noise complaints.

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Nightlife is arguably Montreal’s best selling point internationally. The city’s alt-rock scene put the city on the map musically. The Cirque du Soleil made our burgh the circus capital of the world. The jazz festival, Osheaga and, until recently, the Just for Laughs fest made Montreal one of the hottest tourist destinations on the continent.

But there are dark clouds hovering over the scene. Just for Laughs went belly up this spring. The small venues that are ground zero for the music community are in a fragile state, partly because city hall still hasn’t properly dealt with the issue of noise complaints. A developer can build a condo complex beside an existing venue and if a condo owner calls to complain that Turbo Haus’s punk music is too loud, the police have to go and check it out. These venues are also still reeling from the financial hit of the COVID pandemic.

Martin Chartrand, interim director general of MTL 24/24, said the group will hold another MTL au sommet de la nuit in the fall, but said the city “has left us alone on our little island. It’s very difficult. We want to be there for the community.”

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Chartrand said there are millions of dollars in revenue to be made by pumping up the nightlife offering here.

“I love Montreal, but they have revenue issues,” Chartrand said. “Around the world, cities make millions with nightlife. For Montreal, it’s time for us to take a piece of the pie. Montreal could become the ultimate place for nightlife in North America. We have everything. We have the expertise, the know-how, the creativity.”

That’s what makes it so strange that it appears not to be a priority for Plante’s government. Yes it’s finally going to unveil a nightlife policy but people in the milieu find the timing suspect. They wait seven years and then bring it out the year before an election campaign, to try to convince younger voters they’re doing something for the arts scene.

On the ground, a venue like La Tulipe was told by a judge they have to turn the volume down on their concerts even though the theatre has been there for a century and the condo complainer just arrived on the block. In the real world, on the biggest weekend of the year for nightlife, the Montreal Fire Department shut down the terrasse at Ferreira, one of the city’s busiest restaurants, after a dispute over bylaw rules. These things are not helping market the city.

But really, la question qui tue is: How is it possible that Ottawa came up with a cool nightlife plan before our administration did?

bkelly@postmedia.com

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