Last call

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This article was published 21/01/2017 (3188 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Another rural beverage room, this one run by colourful owner-operator Gary Desrosiers, has been shut down and isn’t likely to reopen.

The Brunkild Bar & Grill, a watering hole since 1922, closed late last year. The hotel was officially shut down by health inspectors, but fire inspectors were also demanding upgrades.

Bar closure “is definitely going to put a hole in the community. Like any community, it needs a gathering place. This was the one in Brunkild.” 

“We finally took a bullet. We knew one was coming, we just weren’t sure from which direction,” said Desrosiers, who has owned the bar since 2000.

Ultimately, Desrosiers said he was shut down because his roof leaked. Desrosiers estimated it would cost $10,000 to $15,000 to replace it.

With so little margin in the rural hotel business, Desrosiers said he couldn’t bring the hotel up to code.

“The hell of it is the province squeezes us and starves us (with regulations) and expect us to maintain standards,” said Desrosiers.

A spokesperson for the Health Department would only say Desrosiers did not address repairs needed “with the overall state of the building.”

Desrosiers was an innovative owner of the landmark beverage room along Highway 3, 50 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. He bought an old-school bus to ferry customers to and from his bar. He was on his third school bus when it closed.

The beverage room walls were covered with vast collection of bar memorabilia, including more than 50 neon and tin signs. Desrosiers auctioned off the collection a year ago.

Relations between Desrosiers and fire and health inspectors were acrimonious for some time. At one point, Desrosiers refused to allow a fire inspector onto his premises, and the inspector came back accompanied by an RCMP officer. Desrosiers took the fire inspector to small claims court and lost.

Desrosiers has also been an outspoken member of the upstart Manitoba Rural Hotel Association. The association maintains most rural hotels have enough sales to sustain their businesses, but the province takes too much away in taxes.

By law, hotel vendors can keep 17 per cent of revenue from beer sales, whereas 30 per cent is the norm in retail sales. They also retain just 18 to 22 per cent of VLT revenues, compared with legions’ 25 per cent and First Nations’ 90 per cent.

Desrosiers said the province’s liquor regulations are focused on making casinos and government-run liquor stores profitable at the expense of private operators such as rural beverage rooms.

“(The province) is acting as our competition and controls all the rules of the game, margins, hours, and everything is slanted to its benefit,” he said. “They take money from us to build liquor-store palaces.”

Desrosiers doesn’t hold out much hope his building will sell and said “It’s just likely going to be left.”

“You have to give (Desrosiers) credit,” said Doug Dobrowolski, councillor for the RM of MacDonald. “With the declining clientele in rural communities, he took the initiative to have buses come pick you up and get you home safely.”

The closure, said Dobrowolski, “is definitely going to put a hole in the community. Like any community, it needs a gathering place. This was the one in Brunkild.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca