Bengal Lounge holds special memories

Re: “Bengal closing in Empress overhaul,” Jan. 14.

I felt a degree of foreboding when I met an old high-school friend this past Christmas for our traditional annual curry at the Empress Hotel’s Bengal Lounge. The building was replete with signs proclaiming the ongoing renovations; I found myself wondering how long that venerable Victoria watering hole would survive.

I see that my worst fears are confirmed and that the axe is to fall on that wonderful place.

I took my first (legal) drink in the Bengal Lounge. My late father was a firm believer that a well-made cocktail, conviviality, civility and intelligent conversation were all hallmarks of adulthood, and so it was to the Bengal Lounge that he took me for a drink on my 19th birthday. My career took me far away from Victoria long ago, but the Bengal Lounge is one of those places to which I always make a point of returning on sadly rare visits to Vancouver Island.

If the place wasn’t making any money, then perhaps one could see the need for renewal. However, it has always been packed when I was there.

Who am I, though, to stand athwart that relentless force called change, particularly when it is — in the eyes of some — equated with progress?

I am, however, certain that other past or current residents of Victoria will, like me, bid it adieu while quietly vowing never to let their shadow darken the threshold of whatever pastiche, cookie-cutter hotel bar takes its august place. I’ll live with my memories. David J. Chmiel Chislehurst, Kent United Kingdom