Local News - Saturday, March 03, 2007 @ 01:00

News of a bar or restaurant closing in St. Catharines doesn’t exactly rank up there on the rarity scale with a man-bites-dog story.

But public notifications confirming the failings of the Union House tavern on Merritt Street and the Stunning Joe Banks eatery on Queenston Street might cause a few more eyebrows than normal to be raised.

That’s because these gin joints were part of what was to be a watering-hole empire run by three city residents, including a recent $5-million lottery winner.

I had sat down with two of the principals of the Infamous Pub Company last August at the recently renovated Union House to discuss their plans.

Sia Wilby, 30, and Daniel Carley, 25, - the other partner Mick Benest, 38, couldn’t make our meeting - talked about plans for the Union House, Stunning Joe Banks and a recently purchased old diner near the Regional Road 20 bridge over the Welland Canal in Allanburg that was to eventually open as the Laughing Highwayman.

Other Infamous Pub establishments in the conceptual stage were Bacchus, Blind Beggar, Calico Jack’s and Cruel Coppinger, all of which were to be located in Niagara.

What gave these plans some credibility, at least from a financial point of view, was that Carley, the operator of another Merritt Street bar bearing the family name, had hit the jackpot on an Ontario Big Name scratch ticket earlier in the year.

But the Union House never did permanently reopen as planned on the Labour Day weekend.

A few weeks ago, notices were plastered on the tavern’s doors informing any interested party that Markham-based MFS Property Management was looking after the building. It’s expected the property will soon be on the market under power-of-sale by the first-mortgage holder, Equitable Trust.

Meantime, over at Stunning Joe Banks, bailiff notices on the building’s doors explain the owner had changed the locks and terminated the lease of tenant Mick Benest effective Feb. 19 for failure to pay $11,000 of owed rent.

What went wrong?

I couldn’t track down Wilby or Benest. A request made through Carley’s family for the lottery winner to call me went unanswered.

Still, tongues wag in Merritton.

The most evident reason for the Union House’s demise is that the owners were unable to get a liquor licence.

Ab Campion of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario confirmed that in April 2006 a numbered company that listed Sia Grace Wilby as the director applied to get a liquor licence for the then-dormant Union House. The application was "abandoned" this past Jan. 19. During this period, Campion said the applicant failed to provide the documents needed to complete a liquor licence inspection by the commission.

Some in Merritton have suggested Wilby, who hails from Britain, didn’t get the licence because she’s not a Canadian citizen. But Campion said you don’t need Canadian citizenship to obtain a liquor licence.

When I was at the Union House last summer, I was impressed by the renovation job the company had done, both inside and out. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the cost was far into six figures. Carley would only say it was a "considerable amount of money."

Whatever. It’s baffling to me that a snag in the liquor licence application couldn’t or wouldn’t be addressed satisfactorily by the company, thus torpedoing the massive and expensive efforts to retrofit a 130-year-old community landmark of sorts.

Maybe the partners soured on each other.

Ya think?

The company’s fleet of vehicles - four garishly painted Austin Minis and a souped-up Lincoln Navigator - haven’t been seen around town for awhile and the island that Infamous Pub is rumoured to have purchased "up north" is apparently no longer in its possession. I guess the double-decker bus from the Spice Girls’ movie Spice World never made it across the ocean to St. Catharines as planned, either. And, of course, dreams of the watering-hole empire appear dashed.

Too bad. If nothing else, the company’s plans were interesting.


dherod@stcatharinesstandard.ca