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| - Tucked away in an otherwise wiped red light district, Cafe Cleo is (in my humble opinion) one of the most important adult entertainment institutions in Montreal. Why does it still stand? Good question! In the 2000s while the city was busy expropriating other red light businesses in the area, Cafe Cleo was the only business that stood up to the gentrification of the area. The expropriation case was brought to the supreme court and it was ruled, in Cafe Cleo's favour, that a city can not displace one private interest (aka a strip club) in favour of another private interest (i.e. fancy pants quartier des spectacles businesses). After the expropriation was overruled, the city finally allocated all of the building permits they had been denying to the business (in an effort to render it to the point of demolition) and kindly suggested they upgrade the building while the rest of the neighbourhood was getting fancier.
You'll be happy to know they've kept the gritty, occasionally sticky, glory of the place to this day.
The club continues, on the first floor, to bring in the biggest diversity of dancers and some of the more reasonable covers for the city. On the top floor you'll find the wildest acts in the city- House of Laureen and Glam Glam being two of my favourite groups to perform. As others have mentioned, Cafe Cleo is one of the only performance spaces that allows full nudity- for drag, burlesque and vaudeville, that's a big deal. Finally, the upper venue is almost entirely run by trans and queer folks and it's been that way for a long time: I can't emphasize how important that is. Long live Cleo.
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