ZACH TENNENT

Winston’s has been the subject of controversy of late.

You’re probably familiar with Winston’s English Pub & Grill on 21st Street East, especially after the last two weeks. Traditionally, one might know Winston’s for its wide selection of draught beers or for being the place where you get punched in the face for your VLT winnings. But on Sept. 19, things took a turn for the worse as light was shed on a serious problem downtown — in a very degrading way — and attracted attention from media and customers alike.

The bar’s co-owner, Chris Beavis, posted a lengthy complaint on the Winston’s Facebook page concerning the issue of crime in downtown Saskatoon. He placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the “unsavory folk” who linger around the Lighthouse Supported Living facility, a block away from the bar.

Beavis accused the Lighthouse of damaging downtown Saskatoon by “bringing an element of criminal activity that is being ignored by city council and the police department.” He then went on to suggest a correlation between the presence of the Lighthouse and a recent drop in repeat business at the Senator Hotel, which houses Winston’s. When you want to combat diminishing business, the first thing you want to do is attack the homeless — right?

Internet response was understandably less than ideal for Beavis, with many people criticizing his argument, his means of getting it across and his association of criminal activity with the Lighthouse. One Facebook commenter questioned whom Beavis was specifically referring to as the source of the problem.

To clarify and remedy the whole misunderstanding, Beavis reiterated that his issue was not with the people at the Lighthouse, just the “parasites and pieces of crap that come downtown to hang around it.” Essentially, this reply exonerates the Lighthouse of any actual guilt or responsibility, while still allowing Beavis enough room to dig a deeper grave for himself. And he did just that, getting involved in a number of arguments in the post’s comment section.

Winston’s Facebook page has since been taken down, but screenshots of the original post as well as his follow up posts and comments are still circulating. Beavis eventually apologized for his remarks with a more or less “sorry, not sorry” attitude. He also said that he intends to get in contact with management at the Lighthouse so that they can work together towards solutions — I’m sure it will go over like a lead balloon given Beavis’ insights about the issues at hand.

Reading his initial post in its full form, it seems relatively clear that Beavis didn’t anticipate the kind of attention and backlash it received. If he had been expecting it, he might have taken the time to proofread it before posting. He doesn’t just get a pass because he didn’t expect people to disagree with him though. The backlash against him as a representative of the bar and personally is both fully warranted and justified.

But that’s not to say that he has gone undefended. Plenty of commenters on the original post agreed with Beavis’ argument, criticizing downtown crime and blaming it on the presence and residents of the Lighthouse. Global News Saskatoon even came to Beavis’ defence on Sept. 22 with an online article delightfully headlined “Downtown Saskatoon Pub Criticized on Facebook For Inciting Change.” The article has since been updated and the headline changed — go figure.

This support is what troubles me. While many people have read or heard about Beavis’ views and are making their outrage and lack of support for Winston’s vocal, there are also people who seem to look up to him for what he said. There are people who feel that he’s the one who finally has the guts to tell it like it is and take aim against the underprivileged. After all, they’ve had it too good for too long.

With that in mind, is all this press and attention ultimately going to be a good thing for Winston’s? Allegedly no publicity is bad publicity. Although I hold my personal doubts about such a big claim, the amount of support the bar has been receiving in the wake of the controversy seems to suggest that Beavis has effectively endeared himself and subsequently Winston’s, to a legion of narrow-minded patrons — and that’s no small feat.

Winston’s may see the loss of some regulars in the next few weeks but it’s also been getting veritable oodles of free publicity from this whole calamity. Maybe that’ll help bring in a new clientele as well. Nothing is certain. But while we wait to see how this works out for Winston’s, at least we can take solace in knowing that Beavis — humanitarian of the year — is out there trying clean up our streets.

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Photo: Katherine Fedoroff/Photo Editor