Two weeks after the city fire marshal shut it down, a downtown Vancouver hip-hop nightclub remains closed because it’s unable to resolve secondary exit issues brought on by construction of a C-Tran bus station.
Q Nightclub and Lounge co-owner Adrian Kallimanis said his request for an easement that would allow the club to continue using its rear exit was denied by the adjacent building’s owner, the Al Angelo Co. He received a short letter from the company Friday notifying him of the decision, he said.
“I let them know they were our last hope,” Kallimanis, 40, who owns the club with business partner Jose Parra. “It’s the demise of the business. We can no longer function.”
An Al Angelo Co. representative did not return a call for comment Friday.
The Vancouver Fire Marshal’s office shut down the club Dec. 4 because C-Tran’s construction on a bus rapid transit center at Turtle Place obstructs access to the business’s rear exit, making the building unsafe for occupancy.
Kallimanis said he’s considering a possible lawsuit against the city and/or C-Tran. He’d already scheduled six weeks of events, including a featured performance on New Year’s Eve.
“And the whole month now is just gone — and our future,” he said. “It couldn’t have been worse timing, as far as the season. My poor employees. … I just feel so bad.”
In November, C-Tran officials informed Kallimanis and Wayne Magnoni, owner of the club’s building at 704 Main St., that they had been using C-Tran’s property for garbage access and a fire access without permission. They were given 30 days to find an alternate fire exit and garbage access.
C-Tran would not be able to grant them an easement or any permission to continue using the property in the future because buses would be pulling in and out of that area, transit officials said. Magnoni said he’s been using the exit for loading and emergencies since the late 1970s, and that the alleyway and easement had been in place long before C-Tran acquired the property.
Q Nightclub’s rear exit on the west side of the building opens onto a small patio enclosed by a wooden fence. A gate that opens to the south into Turtle Place had been used for an emergency exit and garbage access until construction made it impassable this month. The first week of December, Kallimanis cut a wide hole in the fence on the west of the patio, directly in front of the exit, and he placed a wooden step at the opening, hoping to satisfy the city’s requirements. But it didn’t.
After the club was shut down, Kallimanis approached the Al Angelo Co. about moving his back gate to the north side of the wooden fence. The gate would open onto a sidewalk along the Key Bank parking lot, which is the Al Angelo Co.’s property.
“There was no construction needed. We weren’t blocking anything. There wasn’t any change to their parking or sidewalk,” Kallimanis said.
Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli said if the owners wanted to explore creating another exit, they should use a state-registered architect. If a second exit wasn’t feasible, the owners could apply to the city for a change-of-use permit to use the building in another capacity — as an office or retail store, for instance.
