Adam: Ottawa’s nightlife doesn’t need a bureaucrat to boost it

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The concept that Ottawa is boring and someway wants a nightlife commissioner to jazz up leisure within the metropolis is patently absurd.

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However that’s the place the town goes, within the misguided perception that this leisure guru will assist shed Ottawa’s repute as a no-fun metropolis, an unflattering moniker it has worn for years. The reality, although, is that Ottawa is gone the times when it was seen as the town enjoyable forgot. Over time, it has ticked many of the containers for a enjoyable place.

Right now, the town boasts some fine-dining eating places, four of which are within the 100-best Canadian eating places. One other cracked enRoute’s top 10 new Canadian eating places. As effectively, Ottawa has some nationally acclaimed cooks, two of whom have received the Canadian culinary championships.

Town can be dwelling to some tremendous museums, and from the Jazz Competition to Bluesfest, our summers are as fun-filled as any metropolis’s. As are our winters. Ottawa’s downside, nevertheless, is that when individuals latch on to a story, it’s exhausting to drop, even within the face of opposite proof.

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However even when Ottawa nightlife wants a lift, the concept bureaucrats can present us how is laughable. Town doesn’t appear to grasp that nightlife can’t be manufactured or created on drawing boards. Nightlife occurs organically, and if individuals are not going out, metropolis planners should not going to make it occur.

Common nightlife in Ottawa revolves round two foremost locations: Elgin Avenue and the ByWard Market. Sections of Financial institution Avenue have some enchantment. There may be the Nationwide Arts Centre, in fact, which offers nice nightlife enjoyment, even when its programming might not go well with everyone. But when there’s a lack of thrilling locations to go at night time, it’s as a result of our decision-makers have lacked the creativeness to make our metropolis centres vibrant.

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Consider what we may have executed with LeBreton Flats, the Daly constructing website, or extra not too long ago, Lansdowne Park. Time after time, we take the simple street, pumping condos into areas that might have been developed for nice leisure.

Take Sparks Avenue. For many years, the town has flailed at bringing any nighttime spark to the downtown road. Now the ByWard Market, the beating coronary heart of the town’s leisure scene, is being allowed to show right into a slum, with growing incidents of shootings and killings. The Market’s as soon as vibrant nightlife has given option to medicine, addicts, gangs, crime and gunplay. You might be courting hassle if you end up within the Market after midnight. Thus far this 12 months, 4 individuals have been killed. Who wants that?

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“I believe there’s a lot extra we will do to advertise nightlife and music and leisure,” says Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. Sure, there’s, and the repair doesn’t lie in a nightlife financial motion plan. It begins with cleansing up the ByWard Market. Whether or not the answer lies in a brand new police station, as Sutcliffe has instructed, or via different insurance policies, one thing must be executed.

If, as a metropolis report says, individuals spend $1.5 billion on nightlife actions, it means we’re doing one thing proper. Residents get pleasure from their nightlife, and can proceed to take action below protected situations. Those that mock Ottawa for not being nice enjoyable usually make the error of evaluating the town to New York, Paris, London, and even Toronto. However Ottawa shouldn’t be Paris or New York, and it doesn’t must have the Louvre or dozens of three-star Michelin eating places to be hip or vibrant. If the capital is in contrast with cities of comparable dimension and inhabitants, we will maintain our heads excessive within the enjoyable division.

The approaching sale of the Ottawa Senators will present an amazing alternative to create an thrilling leisure hub near downtown, the sort of factor the town ought to be totally invested in. Let’s focus our time and assets on exploring alternatives for significant change — not inconsequential nightlife commissioners.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator. Attain him at [email protected]