Toronto- Angry Lakeshore Village residents – toddlers, children and dogs in tow – protested the opening of Toronto’s newest strip club outside Jay Jay’s Inn Monday night.

“I don’t want a strip club here,” said Eileen Turner, a mother of four boys ages six to 13, who joined about 100 residents of all ages outside the club. “We’ve really got to clean up the lakeshore and support new businesses. This is not what we need.

“For the first time I’ve had to have the conversation with my boys that gentlemen don’t go to a gentlemen’s club. I would like to have chosen that time on my own.”

Many residents railed against a poster in Jay Jay’s window of a scantily-clad woman. Club staff later covered the window.

The century-old building has operated as a country and western bar for the past eight years. After failed attempts to convert it into a rooming house, or as a hotel for little people, owner Jack Cohen decided to once again operate a strip club, as he did previously until 1997.

Jay Jay’s is one of 24 city-licensed adult entertainment businesses in Toronto.

Yet unlike Cohen, few strip club owners shut down operations then renew their licences years later.

“We haven’t had many licence renewals lately,” Bruce Robertson, the city’s head of licensing said in an interview. “The clubs are going out of business. It’s not a thriving business anymore.”

As many as 10 strip clubs in Toronto closed in the past five years. Residents are hopeful Jay Jay’s will follow suit.

But Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, said Jay Jay’s could prosper.

“The community is concerned about the strip club drawing in unsavory characters. But (Cohen) is a reputable business owner,” said Lambrinos, adding that Jay Jay’s passed a conditional check he conducted of the dancers’ washrooms and locker rooms.

“Senior police officers need to work with us on concerns about drug dealing and nuisance behaviour. An over-indulgence of alcohol at strip clubs isn’t common because the price has been elevated. There are few assaults and acts of violence at strip clubs compared to (dance) clubs downtown.”

Lambrinos’s comments did little to appease Jack Beasley, who represents 150 tenants of a seniors’ building directly across the street from the Lake Shore Boulevard West-Fourth Street strip club.

“I face (Lakeshore) so I’m going to get the swearing, the fights, the arguments,” Beasley said. “Our residents are more afraid, not so much about what’s going to happen, but what happens in the lane behind the building after it closes at night.”

Teenager Kelly Whiting said she routinely feels uncomfortable walking past lakeshore bars.

“I see prostitutes on Lake Shore every night driving home from work,” said the 17-year-old. “I see drug deals after school in broad daylight. We need to give him a chance to run a clean business. If there are drugs and prostitution after so much attention on this, they’ll be shut down fast.”

Yesterday, Councillor Mark Grimes [pictured] (Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore) drafted a motion to Etobicoke York Community Council to ask city staff to report back in six months on any bylaw infractions by Jay Jay’s.

“One of the toughest things I’ve had to do is stand before them last night and say there’s nothing we can do legally,” Grimes said yesterday in an interview during a break from community council. “(Cohen) has a legal City of Toronto licence. But we’ll be on him to make sure he follows the letter of the law.”

Residents gathered at a meeting last Thursday night were told they could report bylaw infractions such as noise and parking to the city and public drunkenness to police.

At the protest, entertainment manager Brent Tomlin confronted residents.

“My pro is that I’m getting a lot of free advertising,” Tomlin said in an interview as placards waved wildly around him. “My anti is that my customers are getting harassed.”

Prior to the opening, a community-led online petition had gathered 1,300 names and comments.

“It’s less about this being a strip club and more about what residents believe this community could be,” said Scott Waddell, who moved into the neighbourhood eight months ago from Hamilton.

“I don’t have a problem letting a strip club be in business. But I don’t think he should be able to shut down for 10 years then again be in business. If he’d kept a strip club running, then residents could decide whether they want to move in or not.”

Grimes agrees. Yesterday, Grimes said he wants to put an end to “sleeping” adult entertainment licences. He plans to discuss the issue with city staff.

Tomlin said Jay Jay’s has no plans to shut down.

Back Story, May 2: Concerned Lakeshore Village residents gathered last night to protest the opening of a strip club in their neighbourhood, and to ask how to shut it down.

Jay Jay’s Inn will open a strip club Monday night, within walking distance of three schools, a childcare centre and a seniors’ home. Steps from residential neighbourhoods, it’s in the wrong place, residents charge.

“How can we encourage people to shop in the area?” asked Eileen Turner, one of 50 people who attended the meeting at LAMP Community Health Centre on May 1. “How can we squeeze these scumbags out?”

Jack Cohen’s Gentlemen’s Club will open after two failed proposals to the city to open a boutique hotel or a rooming house.

Cohen, Jay Jay’s owner, believes residents are overreacting.

“I have a clear conscience,” Cohen said in an interview Thursday morning. “It’s my reputation on the line. I’ve been here for 26 years. I’m not going to tarnish my name now.”

Still, a community-led online petition gathered 600 signatures in two days.

“We literally just put up a website, and it rolled,” said Scott Waddell, one of the meeting’s organizers. “It says that kind of establishment in our community is unequivocally not acceptable to us as residents.

“The strip club is not necessarily a moral issue. It’s more symptomatic of what we don’t like to see — stores come in, don’t last and shut down.”

And the fight isn’t over.

This weekend, residents will distribute information flyers that read “No Strip Club in Lakeshore Village”. A protest outside Jay Jay’s is planned for Monday night.

A poster of a scantily clad woman in Jay Jay’s window drew the ire of many.

But talk quickly turned to what can be done to shut down the club.

Cohen opened the business in 1981, and has held an adult entertainment parlour licence on and off since then. The licence is tied to the building and the zoning, essentially grandfathered, and is legally allowed to operate unless its use changes.

“The property is lawful. It has not lost that status,” Curtis Sealock, district manager of investigative services with Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) in Etobicoke said. “What we can do, and you can do, is to make them a good corporate citizen or they lose that licence.”

Bylaw compliance issues could include noise, parking, public drunkenness, as well as the behaviour of employees.

City municipal licensing investigators conduct quarterly inspections of the city’s adult entertainment city-licensed businesses, Sealock said.

Area Councillor Mark Grimes (Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore) said he will ask city licensing staff to report back on the club after six months.

“I do not want this type of use in our neighbourhoods,” Grimes told residents. “It’s not what I envisioned for the revitalization of lakeshore. I’m just as frustrated as you are.”

Grimes suggested an avenues’ study for the area could end future strip clubs. A Long Branch Avenues Study prohibits adult video stores in the area once an existing store closes.

The city granted status to 61 grandfathered strip clubs under a moratorium years ago. Today, only 24 remain in operation. No new strip clubs can open in Toronto under the provision.

Residents asked Sealock whether a change in zoning or bylaw could shut the strip club down.

The answer is no.

“An interim control bylaw can change the bylaw, but any existing legal use is grandfathered into that situation,” Sealock said. “…The courts have said you can change a bylaw, but you can’t take someone lawful out. Once the use has changed, you can’t have that use again.”

Many argue the club sets back the Mimico Revitalization Plan, which is aiming to change the aesthetics of a neighbourhood previously plagued with prostitution and drug dealing. Residents agreed the area is improving.

There’s new coffee shops, vegetable markets and restaurants, but also boarded up stores and cheque-cashing stores.

Resident Denise Dickin suggested a “Take Back the lakeshore” one day a month campaign to encourage residents to frequent Lake Shore Boulevard West shops and restaurants.

“Legally, we can’t force them out. Let’s help them fail and get them out of here.”