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Meet the (drunken) press
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Remembering the Montreal Press Club, once the watering hole of choice for local reporters
by MATTHEW HAYS
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For many media types, the words "press club" evoke images of trotting up to Nantha's Cuisine on Duluth for a few pints on the first Thursday of every month, when the Plateau Press Club meets.
But older members of the press corps recall the original, the Montreal Press Club, which up until about a year ago maintained a series of permanent digs in various downtown hotels where journalists could get booze at cut-rate prices into the wee hours of the night.
Founded in 1948 by a group of reporters who'd returned from covering World War II, the organization was originally called the Montreal Men's Press Club--in fact, women weren't allowed into the club until the early '60s. Brodie Snyder, a former Gazette reporter and a member of the Club since '52, says it was founded so that reporters could get an inexpensive drink when their shift ended. "Back then, the bars stopped serving at 1 a.m. But at the Gazette, the Herald and every other newspaper, people often worked much later. Then, the last deadline at the Gazette was 2:30 a.m. People wanted a place to drink after work."
Polluting the press corps
Though Snyder is mum about the notorious goings-on at the spot ("It's a private club, I'm not saying anything about what went on,") Gazette political cartoonist Terry Mosher (aka Aislin) is more up front about the inappropriate behaviour that often prevailed. "You really don't have the drinkers in the business today the way you did then. It was almost required: editors were drunks who hired drunks. There are stories about members urinating into beer glasses when they were drunk."
Mosher reports that his favourite memories of the Club can't be recalled, though he does acknowledge "getting kicked out of the Club for life--twice. The first time, I'd destroyed the door on the Club. They billed me for it, and they let me in after six months. Then I got kicked out again, for various other behaviour."
High points came whenever something truly exciting was going on in the city. Mosher cites the FLQ crisis and the Olympics as two particular moments when the Press Club really jumped. "There was such an energy at those moments. The Press Club was a conduit for what was going on. In the early '70s, the place would attract this group of marvelous, eccentric characters." Mosher adds that while the Club's membership was predominantly anglophone, there was a certain cachet about attending for francophone media.
Busted and rusted
Typically, the Press Club would serve drinks at all hours, "depending on the bartender," says Mosher. The Club was busted by police in the early '80s, something which heralded its demise. Snyder says the reasons for the group's waning popularity are varied.
"The reasons for its existence in the first place have all disappeared. Drink prices are much cheaper now. Journalism now isn't just a job, it's a career, so I think people won't risk screwing up a $60,000-a-year gig by getting drunk two nights a week. Also, people used to live downtown or close to downtown. Now, many writers live away from the city centre and e-mail their stories into their papers."
Though members argue that the Press Club remains alive, it currently has no physical location. It has existed in various incarnations in the Laurentian Hotel, the Mount Royal Hotel and the Europa Hotel on Drummond.
Robert Frank, who helped try to jump-start things for the Club in the late '90s, says he's sorry "fragmentation" has damaged the institution's chances for survival. As well as the competition from the relatively new Plateau Press Club, some reporters at Le Devoir have recently made noises about starting another Press Club. In addition, the Montreal Chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association--launched by reporters from the Mirror, Hour and Radio Canada International-- has hosted a series of cocktails over the past few years.
Veteran members hold little hope for a resurrection of the original Club. "People just don't drink like they used to," says Mosher, who's been a sober A.A. member for the past 15 years. Snyder adds, "Times have changed. I just don't see any future for it at all." *
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