St. B hotel with well-known strip club, checkered past changes owners
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2019 (1984 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The Chalet Hotel, which has stood at the intersection of Marion Street and Archibald Street for more than a century and is home to a well-known strip club, is under new ownership.
The 16,000 square-foot hotel at 611 Archibald sold for $1.3 million during a mortgage sale Tuesday morning at Kaye’s Auctions. There was a lone bidder and building was purchased for the exact amount of the reserve bid.
The Free Press approached the successful bidder, but the man declined to give his name and did not want to discuss future plans for the business.
The Chalet has 19 hotel rooms, Teasers Burlesque Palace, a downstairs lounge, a restaurant and a beer vendor.
Travis Webber, the lawyer who handled the mortgage sale, did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
The hotel — which opened in 1913 as the Stock Yard Hotel — has a long and checkered history in Winnipeg.
During the late 1910s and early 1920s, it was the site of numerous provincial police raids after it gained a reputation for breaching the temperance and gambling acts in effect at the time.
On Nov. 11, 1920, the hotel was the site of the deadliest day in Manitoba police history when a routine temperance check turned violent and bloody.
Five officers reportedly went to the hotel to follow up on a tip that it was being operated as a speakeasy. The officers were unarmed, since breaching the Temperance Act of 1916 was considered a minor offence that would result in a fine, not arrest.
As two of the officers went room to room searching for violations, one of the hotel guests pulled out a gun and shot Const. Alex McCurdy, first in the arm, then in the head.
McCurdy’s partner, Const. James Uttley, wrestled with the gunman and during the struggle he, too, was shot. The bullet passed through his chest and shattered his spine, causing immediate paralysis.
McCurdy and Uttley were killed. The gunman shot a third officer — who survived — and fled the scene.
The killer was later identified as James Buller. While on the run for the double homicide, he was shot to death in Chicago roughly a year later.
The hotel later underwent multiple name changes, including the Piccadilly Club and the Transit Hotel. It also served as the longtime home of the St. Boniface Kiwanis Club.
It is, perhaps, best-known in recent years as the home of Teasers Burlesque Club. The strip club originally operated out of the Tourist Hotel on Provencher Boulevard, before relocating to the Chalet.
In 2014, Free Press reporter Randy Turner wrote a feature article, entitled The Naked Truth, which took a look at the life of exotic dancers in Winnipeg and the history of Teasers.
ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @rk_thorpe
Ryan Thorpe
Reporter
Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head.
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