Regina’s Q Nightclub and Lounge is facing a financial uphill battle after COVID-19 shuttered its doors in March.
The nightclub, operated by the Gay and Lesbian Community of Regina (GLCR), depleted its savings originally meant for renovations before the pandemic.
“I think we could ride a lot of it out, but it’s going to be very difficult,” said GLCR president Cory Oxelgren.
“We still have rent to pay, we still have utilities, we still have property taxes and insurance.”
The club has since reopened under Saskatchewan’s Phase 3 guidelines. However, it lost around $8,000 each month it was closed, according to Oxelgren.
GLCR set up a GoFundMe page to offset those expenses.
As of Wednesday afternoon, it had raised more than $10,000.
George Evans still remembers the first time he stepped foot in Q.
It was 1 a.m. and the club was closing for the night.
“I walked in and they stayed open for me and they let me talk,” said Evans, a former Torontonian who moved to the Queen City five years ago.
“It was just me and two gentlemen, and they made me feel at home.”
That family sentiment sparked the foundation of the Gay and Lesbian Community of Regina (GLCR) back in 1972. The social club was created to offer a safe space for the LGBTQ2 community in order to avoid persecution from the police and the public.
Nearly 50 years later, it still holds the same purpose.
“Young people are exploring all the different shades of gender and sexuality and preference. They need to meet one another in person and have a space where they can socialize,” Evans said.
“I like being able to come here. I don’t have to work so hard, I don’t have to watch over my shoulder, I don’t have to watch what I say beyond being polite.”
Over the decades, GLCR’s social club has had a number of different homes before finding its current location at 2070 Broad Street.
According to Oxelgren, it started in a small house on Smith Street before moving to a property with boarded-up windows in Regina’s Warehouse District.
Now the club is located in the heart of downtown with a Pride sign on the front entrance. Oxelgren said that’s a testimony to the many human rights victories that have allowed it to operate without social repercussions.
“We’ve seen social change where we’re accepted not persecuted, and it’s been amazing in the last 10 or 15 years,” Oxelgren said.
There’s still work to be done, especially when it comes to rights for transgender and non-binary folks, according to Evans.
“An 18-year-old person who is coming out into the community, who wants to come out as themselves, can walk through the door here and encounter other people who are in the same position,” Evans said.
“If this place weren’t here, people would be left with meeting online, with finding each other in ways I can’t even imagine.”
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