Forced to close, city pubs quiet on St. Paddy’s Day

Struggling owners saw Irish bash as ‘our holy grail to get us through’

For years, St. Patrick’s Day has been the single busiest bar day on the Windsor hospitality calendar. This year? Crickets.

Rather than laying on the extra booze, food and other supplies and getting ready for a crush of revellers, Nic Puim, owner of The Dugout Sports Lounge in downtown Windsor, began the day by informing his entire staff they were laid off.

“They all understand, but everyone is concerned,” Puim said Tuesday of both the fear of COVID-19 and the fear of losing livelihoods. “I think it’s the right thing to do, but it’s just a huge economic impact.”

Many other area pubs, bars and restaurants, ordered by the local health unit late Monday to end liquor sales and sit-down dining at the stroke of midnight, have simply shut down and locked up. Midnight on a Monday in downtown Windsor is not usually busy, but normally there are bars, clubs and gathering spots available for socially inclined night owls. But as this Tuesday began at midnight, however, the streets and sidewalks were dark and dead.

“We’re facing an unprecedented time in our history,” Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday morning as a provincewide state of emergency was declared, all but outlawing public gatherings. Ford said the emergency measures, including daycare and cinema closures and cancelled recreational programs, are in effect until at least March 31.

First Ford, and then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and senior federal officials, promised assistance to soften the economic blow from the drastic steps governments feel forced to take to reign in the coronavirus pandemic. Puim said he has to have hope.

“Something has to be done … and in a timely manner,” he said. Puim and fiance, Roberta Strickland, are holding down the fort for now — “to put food on our table” — by offering takeout menu orders. But Puim predicts the business might not last beyond 10 days without the beer taps being turned back on or outside support.

The Dugout’s main revenue stream has been cut off, but Puim said his fixed costs remain, including rent and utilities.

Any outside assistance has to come soon, said Wade Griffith, owner of The Patio Lounge on Ouellette Avenue.

“Help in the ‘coming days?’ OK, but my bills are here, now,” said Griffith, who is chairman of the Wyandotte Town Centre Business Improvement Association.

“We’re not getting any income, but we’ve got to pay rent, we’ve got to pay utilities — these bills don’t just stop.”

He said the eight Patio Lounge staff members he had to lay off Tuesday are among “10,000 or more” in Windsor’s hospitality sector who are suddenly unemployed “indefinitely.”

Regardless of how long the COVID-19 state of emergency lasts, Griffith predicts a sizable number of Windsor businesses will not reopen. Part of the problem is the terrible timing, with business owners given only hours of notice before the midnight Monday shutdown deadline.

“It’s crazy. St. Patrick’s is the busiest day of the year,” he said. “January and February were horrible this year, tourism was down — St. Patrick’s was our holy grail to get us through.”

Many pub, club and bar owners invested heavily in alcohol and other inventory in anticipation of cashing in on the biggest party day and night of the year, and “now they don’t have money to pay bills,” said Griffith.

“There’s definitely concern and unease,” said Brian Yeomans, chairman of the Downtown Windsor BIA. “The uncertainty comes from what you don’t know — everything is changing so rapidly.”

Yeomans is also “hopeful and confident” that, given the enormous economic effect on small businesses of the anti-coronavirus measures, governments will step in with assistance “to make things whole again.”

Meanwhile, it’s about survival. The Dugout’s Puim said he’d been saving up for major renovations to his downtown business, with plans to close down next week to complete the work. Those plans have been shelved for now, with the renovation funds now serving as a cash reserve to help keep the business alive over the shortterm.

Raj Bains, owner of the downtown House of India, is also wishing for a quick return to normal. He’s still planning to have an expansion of his Ouellette Avenue restaurant completed by April, but the new buffet cuisine offerings won’t be allowed until the province lifts the current anti-coronavirus orders.

Meanwhile, front-end serving staff have been let go and his main chef has been given 15 days off, with a part-time chef continuing with the business’s takeout menu at 325 Ouellette Ave. “Safety first,” Bains responds when asked for his reaction to Ontario’s state of emergency declaration.

Mayor Drew Dilkens said he will be pushing with fellow big-city mayors for senior governments to provide added support to small businesses, particularly in the service sector.

“In the restaurant industry you have a lot of folks who are working mostly for minimum wage, and so the impacts can be even more heightened because they ’re not at the higher end of the wage scale to begin with,” Dilkens said.

Yeomans and others like Adriano Ciotoli of Windsoreats are urging the community to actively support local small businesses.

“I’m here to get some food and support them — hopefully this doesn’t last too long,” said Greg Edwards, one of a steady flow of regulars who showed up Tuesday for takeout at The Dugout.

“Of all the holidays for this to happen, it’s really unfortunate it’s today — this place would have been crazy,” said Edwards, owner of nearby graphic design business Dark Roast Design.

Griffith said he and his peers learned their business loss insurance only covers disasters.

“They said, basically, there’s been no damage, so you’re not covered.

“Why are we not covered? This is a disaster to us.”