This was also the time of 'The Rose' on Parliament - not the friendliest place to go if you were a guy. It was rather dykey - I remember being cowed by a large, handsome woman who was doing security watch. There was also the Chez Moi - my first gay bar in Toronto and a bit of a hallucination. Apparently at one point there was a murder there - a gun, and they never caught the guy. You had enter off the laneway through the back. It was just down the laneway from Chaps between Isabella and Gloucester. No young queen that I was with would go near it, and on one knew anyone who had ever gone in. It was subject of hushed whispers and sideways glances.
'Soltero's' was a ill-omened place with a dubious reputation. On Sundays, it was even earlier - or was it that there was a window between 7pm and 11pm? Anyway, it was pretty limited. This was in the days when serving alcohol stopped 11pm. It might have been one of Toronto's late-night bars for dancing that stayed open until 6a.m. 'Stages' was up above the Parkside - where Sobey's is now. The bar kept the carpet when they moved in, which gave the place the undertone of sausages and pancakes - and grease. He remembers that the bar on Hayden was called 'Rawhide', and that originally it may have had a Golden Griddle in the basement.
