KITCHENER - If the City of Kitchener does not want to run The Boathouse as a live-music venue, local impresario Glenn Smith says he would be happy to take it over and even call it after his former blues club on Queen Street South - Pop the Gator.

Smith is going public with his idea one week after the City of Kitchener took back control of the Victoria Park property.

Smith said he is concerned the pond-side building will be leased out to a restaurant or coffee shop and the city will lose one of its brightest jewels - a live-music hot spot with a national reputation.

"It's a jewel that's there and it just pains me to see the city screw it up," Smith said.

In early October, city officials will put out a request for proposals. Interested individuals, organizations and businesses will have about a month to submit detailed plans for the 81-seat bar-restaurant. A new operator could be selected before Christmas and the Boathouse could be open next summer, after renovations are finished.

Smith said he has to get in line like anyone else interested in the property, but he has decades of experience running bars, clubs and booking live bands.

From 1989 to 1994 he was one of the owners of Pop the Gator - a legendary blues club on Queen Street South. Smith hired the late, great Mel Brown to anchor the house band at the club. The band went on to become Mel Brown and the Home Wreckers.

Before that, Smith booked bands in a room at the Mayfair Hotel called The Hoodoo Lounge. Before that he booked blues bands into the Legion building on Ontario Street. He also started and ran The Circus Room.

"I had four locations in downtown Kitchener booking blues bands and they all worked, they were all successful," Smith said. "The community got behind them and they were fantastic times."

Currently, Smith owns Ethel's Lounge on King Street North in Waterloo and is a partner in a burger restaurant on University Avenue.

The washrooms at the Boathouse are a long-standing source of trouble. The washrooms have outside doors for people in the park, and inside doors for Boathouse patrons. But the operator cannot control the access from outside, resulting in steady complaints about drug use, sex in the stalls and dirty needles thrown on the floor.

Smith said for $60,000 he will have washrooms built in the back of the building, where there is currently a storage room.

A live-music venue in that building is worth the investment, he said.

"This can work, this is easy," Smith said. "I will go down and call it Pop the Gator."

Mayor Carl Zehr read a brief statement on week ago when announcing the city was taking back control of the Boathouse from operator Kevin Doyle, citing unpaid bills.

"The city is committed to the Boathouse being an important cultural venue for live music and staff will immediately begin developing a request for proposals for a restaurant, and live-music business in the facility," Zehr said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

A restaurant that has live music a couple of times a week would be nothing like The Boathouse of the past nine years. For six nights a week, up to three different bands a night played there - about 700 shows a year. No other venue in Waterloo Region staged more live music.

"I hope that's really in their hearts that they want that, the music venue," Smith said. "Is the city's heart in the right place? I hope so."