NOT SO FUNNY
‘No Fascist’ show cancelled after venue’s locks were jammed,
After arriving to find his venue’s locks had been smashed, the owner of Comedy Bar opted to pull the plug on a late-night No Fascist show last weekend.
Gary Rideout Jr., the Bloorcourt venue’s co-owner and artistic director, says he took action to protect the safety of his staff and patrons in the event that the show became an unsafe space used for fighting between opposing political groups.
Initially booked for Saturday night, the No Fascist T.O. Comedy Show was organized by local comic Danny Polishchuk — writer and actor in Filth City — and had plans to give the proceeds it raised to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. The event was also promoted as a “free speech comedy show.”
On the day the event was supposed to happen, Rideout Jr. was made aware of a Facebook post which referred to this standup comedy show as “crypto-fascist,” and said his boxoffice line had received several callers voicing concerns that people involved in the show may have ties to extreme political groups.
When he arrived at the club around 4 p.m., Rideout Jr. found the venue’s locks had been jammed. He said he did not report the broken locks to the police because his top priority was reopening in time for his early evening shows. He also said he didn’t think there was any way to prove who was responsible for the damage, which cost him more than $400 to fix.
After assessing the physical damage done to the venue and the calls re- ceived, Rideout Jr. cancelled Polishchuk’s show.
“Whether they were coming or not or whatever, it was not worth the risk. My bartenders are five-foot-tall, 100-pound women, you know what I mean?” he said.
“They don’t need theoretically, pos- sibly a white supremacist group showing up, or an anti-fascist group showing up to fight the white supremacist group . . . it’s just a comedy show.”
Polishchuk’s promotional art at the top of his event page seems to borrow substantially from that of the “No Fascist T.O. Diversity Rally,” which successfully pushed for the closure of “the Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses” event at Ryerson University a few weeks ago, calling it “bigoted.”
Faith Goldy, then of the Rebel, and controversial U of T psychology pro- fessor Jordan Peterson were supposed to speak at the event, which the school ultimately shut down citing safety concerns.
(The event has been moved to Canada Christian College and rescheduled for Nov. 11.)
“Free speech is obviously the most important thing in terms of being a comedian,” said Polishchuk, who thinks that event should have been allowed to continue. “The moment you’re not allowed to say things and people threaten you, it flies in the face of everything that comedy is about.”
While he used borrowed branding, the comic maintains there was nothing unusual about the event he wanted to host on Saturday.
“There were 20 comedy shows in Toronto on Saturday night, all the same, except one of them was called the pro-free speech show and that’s the one that got cancelled because of threats of violence and actual violence,” he said.
His event’s description includes a disclaimer that “If you’re an ACTUAL NAZI or WHITE SUPREMACIST or anything of this sort you ARE NOT WELCOME.”
“The thing now is obviously I’m against Nazis in every form,” said Polishchuk, who is Jewish, “but if you don’t actually disavow them, maybe sometimes they think this is an event for them. I just didn’t want there to be any, like, confusion about what this was.”
Polishchuk says he understands why Rideout Jr. made the call he did and thinks the way the venue handled the situation was “great.” He still wants to reschedule the show for Nov. 11, but is still looking for a venue. He hopes to raise some money to help cover the cost of Rideout Jr.’s damaged locks.