Bar employees that "mingle with the customers" or "sit at the same table or counter" with a customer" can be fined $200 or sent to jail for up to 60 days, according to a Montreal bylaw.Bylaw 3416 was passed in March 1967 and was vigorously enforced for two years, leading many establishments to shut down and causing grief to their employees and management.
A City of Montreal clerk tells Coolopolis that the bylaw is still on the books.
But another article from 1993 reports in passing that lawyer Clement Bluteau had it struck down.
The bylaw was put into use as recently as 1993 at Wanda's strip club.
It aimed at attacking prostitution and watered-drink scams.
In those situations a woman would sit with a man and persuade him to order her a drink. The bar would pour her a drink with no alcohol in it and charge for a real drink. She'd get a cut.
It was rampant in such places as the Casa del Sol on Drummond just above De Maisonneuve (part of Jewish Mafia Willie Obront's empire) and at the Silver Slipper on Metcalfe just above St. Catherine and the Black Orchid on St. Catherine.Cops targeted those places mercilessly.
The bylaw was put into effect just prior to Expo 67.
Courts had recently deemed topless dancers acceptable, but Mayor Drapeau vowed to crack down on them anyway and 3416 appears to be a tool to keep the bars on their heels.
Soon after an MP expressed his concerns in Parliament about the bylaw being excessive but G.B. Puddicombe of the Quebec Superior Court said, however, that he thought it was quite legal, which was bad news for Shirley Sabourin, Pierrette L'Abbee and Jocelyn Chamberot hoped to get freed from the charges.
Another early victim of the anti-chatting bylaw was a dancer at Champs Sho-Bar on Crescent* named Joan Hill. Her lawyers argued that the bylaw went beyond municipal authority (was ultra vires) and so the case should not be heard.
The court agreed to delay the trial awaiting judgment from the higher court.
Bylaw 3416 went to the Supreme Court in 1969 but they refused to hear the case on technical grounds, so it ended up in appeals court, where it apparently survived a legal challenge.
By 1969 about 10 downtown Montreal nightclubs had either lost their licenses temporarily or permanently due to the bylaw and had to shut down.
The Cabaret, a club at 281 St. Catherine E (which later became the famous male strip club) attempted to get around the bylaw by making all employees shareholders in the bar.Nowadays strip club dancers are not employees.
They are categorized as freelancers who have a casual relationship with the bar, likely as a result of the 3416 bylaw.
Expo '67 came and went but Montreal cops kept on busting nightclubs based on the bylaw.
Clubs like Beret Bleu saw 9 employees rounded up and manager Michel Soccio charged with interfering with police work. Chez Paree had five dancers taken into custody in the same 1968 raid.
Cops busted a staggering 22 people - 19 young women and three male managers - on May 30, 1969 simply for talking to customers at Pal's (97 St. Cat E.), where six girls were arrested, another half dozen were busted at the Casa del Sol (2025 Drummond), and seven more from the Beret Bleu (175 St. Cat E.).
Their crime? Talking to customers.
The bar owners got some measure of revenge on Aug. 8, 1969 when head of the Morality Squad Paul Boisvert came to do his thing, likely at Chez Paree, or possibly Casa Del Sol or The Silver Slipper and someone managed to get him to do something that caused him to hand in his resignation.
One can only speculate what he did.
Whatever it was the bar owners must have got it on film.
Police chief Jean-Claude Gilbert was irate and accused the bar owners of setting his man up. He initially refused Boisvert's resignation. Boisvert found a new line of work. The bylaw appears to have faded out into obscurity.
Variations of this and other Montreal stories appear in my upcoming book Montreal: 375 Tales
*That same year the legendary Lili St. Cyr, then 50, was arrested for obscenity while performing at the same bar.