No longer welcome at the tennis club
Drunk driving claim sours club for bon vivant
The Toronto Lawn Tennis Club does not loudly advertise its presence. It sits behind gates on a dead-end off Yonge Street, bordered mainly by residential backyards.
It seems to know its place. This is not Forest Hill or the Bridle Path, where luxury is lavish and on demand, regardless of etiquette. This is Rosedale, where the pasta place next to the club famously will not put Parmesan on seafood even if you ask nicely. And if you don’t like rules like that, you probably don’t belong here in the first place.
Few people belong at the Toronto Lawn like Roel Bramer, 76, a pioneering figure in the city’s nightlife, and a member of nearly 50 years, whose legal battle with the club is deep into knockdown, drag-out, expensive litigation, with witnesses that include a sitting senator and a high-society heir to the Eaton fortune.
At issue is Bramer’s alleged drunk driving, and the club’s allegedly biased and unfair discipline process. Last year, those two factors led to the lengthy suspension of his membership, which is set to last until June, and only be lifted if he agrees to never drive to or from the club again.
It has been an ugly episode for the club, which is just a few years younger than Canada itself. As it unfolded last year, it caused consternation for its board. The court file includes an email from Jonathan Kay, editor of The Walrus magazine, to his fellow board members, calling Bramer’s first reported instance of allegedly impaired driving a “serious threat to the reputation of the club, not to mention the physical safety of every pedestrian and motorist who lies between (the club) and Roel’s home (which, by coincidence, happens to lie directly on my own route home). We have let this situation fester long enough.”
Bramer joined the club as a young man because it had “one of the most, if not greatest established networks in the country. The club is not akin to a YMCA or Goodlife,” he states in court filings. He “essentially grew up” there, and is “distraught” by the allegations, which he denies. He also complains that false rumours have arisen about alcoholism and dementia.
“The innuendo of guilt due to the unjustified and illegal suspension hangs over me like a dark cloud of doom,” he states in court filings. “I am devastated by these actions.”
It is a marked departure from the kind of publicity to which Bramer is accustomed, in which he invariably comes across as dapper, the kind of guy who walked away from the 2005 Air France crash landing at Pearson, after sliding down the chute, wondering whether it was a bad time to ask the flight attendant to lunch.
In a 1972 profile, journalist Marci McDonald called him “master purveyor of the Playboy dream to the office-clerk crowd,” and the “swingiest single of them all.”
Bramer emigrated from Holland and studied at McGill before moving to Toronto in the 1960s, just as the city was emerging from its uptight midcentury puritanism. He changed that, helping the city grow, as he once put it, from an “inconspicuous girl” into “quite a femme fatale.”
He opened The Boiler Room restaurant on Wellington Street, then The Coal Bin next door, selling small glasses of beer for a dime. Then came The Gasworks on Wellesley, and the Generator uptown. He also created the International Swingles, a club for singles, which later became Swingles Travel, catering to couples. He also founded and eventually sold the Amsterdam Brewpub.
Last January, according to court records, he had a glass of wine at the club, then left for dinner with Senator Nicole Eaton and her husband Thor Eaton, at Alo restaurant. They ate parsnips with a tartare dish, pork belly and foie mousse, according to a receipt in evidence. Senator Eaton had a cocktail, her husband did not drink and Bramer had a cocktail and a glass of wine.
When the Eatons’ driver dropped him back to the club, he had another glass of wine after promising the bartender he would not drive, but refused to surrender his keys. He is alleged to have left the club but come back for his car. A manager tried to stop him, even reaching into the car.
The manager called 911, and the episode led to a three-month suspension. Last June, however, the club alleges he was unfit to drive and was offered a taxi, but he said he would walk home. Surveillance images filed as evidence show Bramer left with a group heading for a local pub, but then re-entered the garage and drove away.
His membership was suspended at a hearing last September.
Bramer denies driving while impaired, and cites bar chits from that night in June indicating he consumed three glasses of his usual Stoneburn Sauvignon Blanc, and bought some other drinks for friends over more than four hours, while also eating a meal. He states he is “vehemently opposed” to impaired driving, and has never been charged.
His effort to overturn the indefinite suspension of his membership is slated to be heard in court in May. He is seeking damages of $250,000, plus legal fees. Neither side agreed to comment.
IT HAD ‘ONE OF THE MOST ESTABLISHED NETWORKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE CLUB IS NOT AKIN TO A YMCA.’