‘Feels like home’ Legions reopening half a branch at a time
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/06/2020 (1563 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Dancing is not allowed. Nor is gambling on VLTs. But you can go inside and have a quiet beer. And in time, you’ll be able to buy a ticket for the meat draws.
Yes, the Royal Canadian Legion is coming back, one branch at a time.
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On Tuesday afternoon, just after 2 p.m., Naomi Vermette unlocked the back door of Legion Branch No. 252 (Winnipeg South Osborne) to allow customers inside for the first time since March 19.
Vermette manages this legion on Osborne Street, a few blocks south of Confusion Corner. She says the opening is the first real branch event since they organized a drive-by birthday celebration in the parking lot on May 25 for legion member James Deschamps, who died eight days later.
It’s what might be called a soft opening. No one is waiting at the door. But once the doors are open, some patrons drift in, as one might expect on a cool, overcast midweek afternoon. The legion’s beverage room seating capacity is usually 150, but because of COVID-19 restrictions, that is halved to 75. The branch’s assortment of VLTs are unplugged and dark, lined up along one wall.
But the legion staff stands ready, including Daunica Picard, who handles entertainment booking for the branch, one of 1,350 across Canada.
Before COVID-19 closed their location, Picard was doing her best to get a younger clientele into the branch. By booking the right bands, she says she was succeeding in attracting a crowd that was left with fewer options when Toad in the Hole closed in Osborne Village last year.
“Normally we go with a 50- to 60-year-old group, but now we’re starting to get 20- and 30-year-olds in here.”
She may have her work cut out for her getting that crowd back. It doesn’t help that dancing is not permitted under the current guidelines, which irks her.
“You can walk into Walmart and everybody is running amok,” she says. “I had suggested: Let’s put some Xs on the dance floor and try and stay within your X. Why are we not allowing dancing?
“Hopefully it’ll all come back together,” she says of the branch she affectionately refers to as “S.O.L.”
“We have to support our legion and we have to support our musicians in the city because they have really taken a hit here,” Picard says.
Many of the legion branches do primarily serve an older clientele, which is one reason they’re opening cautiously, with each branch seemingly considering how to do it right, employing the cleaning and distancing protocols required by the government. The Henderson Highway Legion No. 215 is scheduled to open Monday, June 15. The Duke of Kent branch in Winnipeg’s Exchange District will likely open Wednesday, June 17, says manager Sheila Babian.
If it’s not a co-ordinated effort, that’s because each branch is autonomous and member-supported. That means, like any other business, legion branches are at risk of folding if they can’t operate their usual business.
“We don’t get grants and we don’t get federal funding,” Babian says.
The Duke of Kent’s usual capacity is 50, so that means COVID restrictions mean they’ll be reduced to 25 customers at a time, which Babian says is a workable number. She says it’s important to be open, even at reduced hours, to be there for the regulars.
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At the South Osborne Legion, one such regular is Ralph Moan, 82, who lives in the neighbourhood and is unconcerned about the possibility of infection, given the province’s low number of active cases (eight as of Wednesday).
“What are the odds of seeing one of those people come here?” he says as he waits patiently for his friends and his son to join him for a beer. He is also unconcerned about the absence of VLTs and the restriction on dancing.
“I gave up the VLTs years ago,” he says. “And I’ve got two left feet so I don’t dance that great.”
Moan says he is just grateful for a quiet spot to enjoy a social beverage.
“It feels like home,” he says. “It’s not like going to a bar where you don’t know anybody. Here, there’s a gang of us and that we’ve been hanging around together for years.”
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @FreepKing
Randall King
Reporter
In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.
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