‘Creaky’ Copa’s era ending

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This article was published 21/07/2007 (6834 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE wrecker’s ball is aiming for The Copa, the north Winnipeg institution that has been hosting weddings and socials down by the Red River since 1919.

The owners of the banquet hall off Main Street said they’ve been served eviction papers by the property owner and the one-time barn is slated to be demolished in May 2008, making way for an expansion of the Northgate Trailer Park and RV campground.

“It’s old and creaky, but full of wonderful memories,” said Ron Walpole, who bought The Copa with his wife, Linda Graham, four years ago.

Walpole and Graham said they’re staying in the banquet business, owning The Copa name, and will open a new facility — most likely in the Polo Park area — next spring. They also own the Regent Park Banquet Hall on Regent Avenue West in Transcona.

The couple said there will be no interruptions for weddings booked at The Copa this summer. In fact, they said The Copa is booked every weekend to the end of the summer, most weekends from September to New Year’s Eve, and from Valentine’s Day to May.

“We’ll probably operate two Copas at the same time next spring until we have to leave here,” Walpole said from a picnic table outside the facility.

Walpole said four wedding bookings for the club for the summer of 2008 have agreed to move to wherever the couple ends up, adding several other bookings for next summer want to see what the new facility looks like.

“We’ll be providing the same quality food and the same level of service — and there won’t be a gravel parking lot,” Walpole said.

Anyone heading out of the city on Main Street will have passed the entrance to The Copa and its over-sized, garish sign. The banquet hall is tucked into the rear of a long, narrow property that backs onto the Red River.

The open grass field that surrounds The Copa is a popular retreat for party-goers on a hot weekend night and is often the site for outdoor weddings.

Recent development has seen Shooters Family Golf Centre set up on one side of The Copa and the River Grove residential development on the other side.

Area residents have been unhappy with the noise coming from The Copa on weekends and supported the owner’s plan to expand the trailer park and kill the banquet hall.

The zoning on the property where The Copa is located was recently changed to MH-P Mobile Home Park, from R1-20 residential district — enabling the owners to expand the trailer and RV park.

The city allowed the owners to reduce the size of the mobile home lots, from 40 feet to 30 feet, allowing them to squeeze in a few more units. And the city exempted the owner from having to provide a common recreational area for the mobile homes.

A spokesman for the family-run company that owns the property did not return calls from the Free Press.

The trailer park now has spaces for about 74 mobile homes and 20 RVs. Documents filed at city hall state the owner plan to add an additional 64 mobile homes. After The Copa is demolished, the owner will transfer the eastern-most portion of the site — a line roughly crossing where The Copa now stands — to the city as a public reserve. The owner will also build a dike across the property for flood protection.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca