Royal Albert owner changes management, temporarily pulling plug on live music

Advertisement

Advertise with us

Less than six months after its triumphant return, the Royal Albert Arms has once again shut its doors — albeit with a plan to open again in a few weeks.

Read this article for free:


By clicking the button above, an account will be created and you will begin to receive some of our recommended newsletters. You may opt out of any newsletter by visiting your Email and Communication Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.

or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2019 (2544 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Less than six months after its triumphant return, the Royal Albert Arms has once again shut its doors — albeit with a plan to open again in a few weeks.

A Facebook post Wednesday from Mat Perlman, the live music venue’s booker, said venue and restaurant staff were “not given prior warning” and locked out Tuesday. 

He added he is now working to find alternative locations for shows that were booked throughout November. 

Mike Koop of The Bonaduces performing at the soft opening for The Royal Albert on Friday May 24, 2019. (Mike Sudoma / Winnipeg Free Press files)
Mike Koop of The Bonaduces performing at the soft opening for The Royal Albert on Friday May 24, 2019. (Mike Sudoma / Winnipeg Free Press files)

“All of it happened with no notice to me or any of our staff — bar, sound— whatever, none of us knew. We just walked up and found it locked up,” Perlman told the Free Press, adding he was able to get in touch with the building’s owner, Neil Soorsma, who let him inside. 

The lease-holder of the space is Colleen Swifte, the owner of the Royal Albert Bar and Grill (previously Alycia’s), who reopened the venue in June. Soorsma cancelled her lease; he declined to tell the Free Press why, apart from saying he’s “not in the business of shutting things down unless there’s really good reasons to do it.”

Swifte has not responded to several requests for comment.

“I can’t speak on what was happening with Neil, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know,” Perlman said. “Whatever happened, it merited him locking her out which, in turn, meant locking the venue out because we were using her (liquor) licence.”

Because of that, the venue must remain closed until new management obtains another licence which, Perlman was told, likely won’t be until sometime in December.

Soorsma confirmed David McKeigan, manager and booker at the Pyramid Cabaret, will be managing the venue.

“I have no doubt Dave from the Pyramid will put money into it and spruce it up a bit, but the timing was rough,” said Perlman.

“It just put me in a really sh–ty spot for bands, you know; I’m here to help them. One show is (Thursday) and I’m getting 48 hours notice ahead of time it’s gotta move. Dave is trying to accommodate as many as he can at the Pyramid but there’s still plenty that can’t be helped right now.

“I’m going all over right now to make sure that anyone who has a show booked doesn’t have to sweat it too hard.” – Mat Perlman, Royal Albert Arms’ live music booker

“I’m going all over right now to make sure that anyone who has a show booked doesn’t have to sweat it too hard.”

Soorsma did not provide a reopening date to the Free Press.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel

Erin Lebar

Erin Lebar
Manager of audience engagement for news

Erin Lebar spends her time thinking of, and implementing, ways to improve the interaction and connection between the Free Press newsroom and its readership.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Women wearing appropriate clothes to gym not asking for men’s opinions

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Preview

Women wearing appropriate clothes to gym not asking for men’s opinions

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

Prior to last Saturday, I was the blissful sort of person who could say “who is that, again?” when I heard the name Shane Gillis.

Now, I know him as the comedian who said “women just dress like whores now” at the gym during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live — a show that fired him in 2019, by the way, for being racist and homophobic on a podcast yet continues to invite him back as a host for some reason.

Gillis also likened women’s short shorts (the kind one might wear to lift weights, say) to neon fishing lures.

“And don’t look. You’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look, because they are filming,” he said.

Read
2:01 AM CDT

Federal data on Winnipeg's number of homeless people inaccurate, advocates say

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Preview

Federal data on Winnipeg's number of homeless people inaccurate, advocates say

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 1:02 PM CDT

The head of End Homelessness Winnipeg says she has no confidence in data about the city’s homeless population due to problems with the federal system that tracks those numbers.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 1:02 PM CDT

City’s drug, homelessness crises overlooked on campaign trail, front-line groups say

Scott Billeck 15 minute read Preview

City’s drug, homelessness crises overlooked on campaign trail, front-line groups say

Scott Billeck 15 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 12:20 PM CDT

Those on the front lines of coping with the city’s deepening homelessness and drug crises express concern at civic election candidates’ lack of attention to the issues

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 12:20 PM CDT

Half Pints Brewing out of bankruptcy, back on shelves

Aaron Epp 5 minute read Preview

Half Pints Brewing out of bankruptcy, back on shelves

Aaron Epp 5 minute read Yesterday at 5:47 PM CDT

A pioneer of Winnipeg’s craft brewing scene has reopened under new ownership.

Read
Yesterday at 5:47 PM CDT

Austen adaptation a handsome, delicate cinematic dance

Alison Gillmour 4 minute read Preview

Austen adaptation a handsome, delicate cinematic dance

Alison Gillmour 4 minute read 4:00 AM CDT

Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) can look rather bedraggled in this new version of Jane Austen’s first published novel, which has once again ignited the “loose hair” controversy that has raged among Janeites since the casually coiffed 2005 reimagining of Pride & Prejudice.

Purists might be vexed, possibly even discomfited or discomposed by some of the details in this take on Sense and Sensibility, part of a wave of Austen adaptations and Austen-adjacent material released to mark the 250th anniversary of the writer’s birth.

Would prudent Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) be penning letters to a man to whom she is not engaged? Would even spirited Marianne be running barefoot through the woods?

Possibly not. But if director Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) and rookie screenwriter Diana Reid don’t adhere to the strict letter of Austen’s work, they catch much of its spirit. This is a vivid and deeply felt examination of the enduring power of sisterhood, which is at the core of not just the 1811 novel, but of Austen’s own life in the profound importance of her relationship with her sister Cassandra.

Read
4:00 AM CDT

Health ministers meeting ends without long-term funding commitment from Ottawa

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Preview

Health ministers meeting ends without long-term funding commitment from Ottawa

Carol Sanders 4 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

Canada’s health minister failed to deliver the promises of long-term funding increases that her provincial and territorial counterparts, who were gathered in Winnipeg this week, had been seeking.

Instead, Marjorie Michel reiterated the federal government’s commitment to working collaboratively towards renewing bilateral funding agreements and to meet again before the end of the year to discuss long-term funding.

“The decision we all agreed on is to have our public service… start the work on what will be the next step for the next negotiation on Canada Health Transfer and other agreements,” Michel said Friday at a news conference after meeting with the other health ministers.

When asked why the federal government couldn’t commit to maintaining funding levels geared, at a minimum, to the rate of inflation over the long term, Michel said that it’s time to update agreements signed a decade ago.

Read
2:01 AM CDT